Chipmaker Micron Technology uncovered on Tuesday ambitious plans to create a $100-billion computer chip factory complex in upstate New York, in a bid to support domestic chip manufacturing and conceivably deal with a worrying chips shortage. The cash will be contributed more than a 20 year period.
The world’s biggest semiconductor fabrication facility
Micron claims the project will be the world’s biggest semiconductor fabrication facility and will make almost 50,000 jobs in New York alone. As of now, the biggest semiconductor makers in the world are: Intel Corp., Samsung, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC), SK Hynix, Micron Technology Inc., Qualcomm, Broadcom Inc., and Nvidia.
The chip shortage first became evident in 2020, when many chip-production factories, called foundries, shut because of the Coronavirus virus. Simultaneously, the virus was changing the habits of individuals around the world.
Individuals stuck in their homes put vigorously in new PCs for themselves or for their children who were learning from home. Unable to go out to movie theaters or restaurants, many individuals selected to purchase new TVs or game consoles, and with working and gaining from home came the need to stay connected. This prompted expanded sales of phones, particularly new 5G-enabled phones, and with this improvement surfaced a stressing chip shortage.
Factories could just not produce chips fast enough for demand.
Samsung, the world’s second biggest chip maker, it could need to skip the launch of its next Galaxy Note smartphone. Samsung’s mobile chief and Co-CEO Koh Dong-jin told an shareholder meeting at the time that, “there’s a serious imbalance in supply and demand of chips in the IT sector globally.”
Fixing a global chip shortage
The firm has declared a first phase investment of $20 billion planned before this decade’s over. The news happens as US President Joe Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act in August of 2022, giving $52.7 billion in subsidies to U.S. semiconductor production and research to support competitiveness with China.
