According to a recent Reuters report, the US government, under Biden's administration, will allow a few criteria-matching semiconductor fabs to circumvent environmental protection laws. On Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed legislation that effectively enables these fabs to not follow the strict regulations designed for maximum preservation of the environment. The Semiconductor Industry Association has noted that without this new legislation, companies that are extending facilities on US soil would be significantly slowed down due to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969. The CHIPS Act's primary force driver isn't just domestic production but near-future completion so that future geopolitical shifts don't impact US companies. The speed of getting permits to manufacture advanced chips is essential for every CHIPS Act recipient company, like Intel, Samsung, TSMC, and Micron.

Micron Technology, Inc. today announced results for its fourth quarter and full year of fiscal 2024, which ended August 29, 2024.

Fiscal Q4 2024 highlights

• Revenue of $7.75 billion versus $6.81 billion for the prior quarter and $4.01 billion for the same period last year
• GAAP net income of $887 million, or $0.79 per diluted share
• Non-GAAP net income of $1.34 billion, or $1.18 per diluted share
• Operating cash flow of $3.41 billion versus $2.48 billion for the prior quarter and $249 million for the same period last year

Fiscal 2024 highlights

• Revenue of $25.11 billion versus $15.54 billion for the prior year
• GAAP net income of $778 million, or $0.70 per diluted share
• Non-GAAP net income of $1.47 billion, or $1.30 per diluted share
• Operating cash flow of $8.51 billion versus $1.56 billion for the prior year

Micron Technology, Inc., today announced the availability of the Crucial P310 2280 Gen 4 NVMe solid-state drive (SSD), which offers two times faster performance than Gen 3 SSDs and 40% faster performance than Crucial's P3 Plus, giving gamers, students and creatives a boost in speed when they boot and use data-intensive applications. With capacities up to 2 terabytes (TB) and read and write speeds of 7,100 and 6,000 megabytes per second (MB/s) respectively, the P310 2280 SSD enables more customers than ever to gain access to gaming performance without paying gaming prices. This launch expands Micron's P310 portfolio to address PCs, laptops and PlayStation 5, closely following the July launch of its award-winning Crucial P310 2230 SSD, which is targeted at users of handheld gaming consoles and mini PCs.

"Micron's Crucial P310 2280 SSD delivers blazing fast gaming-level speeds, allowing users to do it all faster — from gaming to booting Windows to running multiple creative apps at the same time — without compromising on quality," said Jonathan Weech, senior director of product marketing for Micron's Commercial Products Group. "Architected with our advanced 3D NAND technology and optimized to deliver the utmost power efficiency, the 2280 SSD empowers everyone from gamers to creatives to squeeze more out of their battery life when using data-rich apps."

TrendForce's latest reports reveal that the second quarter of 2024 saw a significant increase in demand for enterprise SSDs due to the increased deployment of NVIDIA GPU platforms and rising storage needs driven by AI applications, along with a surge in demand from server brands. The surge in demand for high-capacity SSDs for AI applications—coupled with suppliers' inability to adjust capacity in the first half of the year—resulted in a supply shortage that drove average enterprise SSD prices up by more than 25% QoQ. This price increase led to a revenue growth of over 50% for suppliers.

Looking ahead to the third quarter, demand from North American CSP customers continues to rise, and server brands show no signs of slowing down their orders, further boosting procurement volumes of enterprise SSD. With supply shortages persisting into the third quarter, TrendForce forecasts a 15% increase in contract prices compared to the previous quarter, with supplier revenues expected to grow by nearly 20%.

TrendForce reports that NAND Flash prices continued to rise in 2Q24 as server inventory adjustments neared completion and AI spurred demand for high-capacity storage products. However, high inventory levels among PC and smartphone buyers led to a 1% QoQ decline in NAND Flash bit shipments. Despite this, ASP increased by 15% and drove total revenue to US$16.796 billion, a 14.2% growth compared to the previous quarter.

All NAND Flash suppliers returned to profitability starting in the second quarter and are expanding capacity in the third quarter to meet strong demand from AI and server markets. However, weaker-than-expected PC and smartphone sales in the first half of the year are likely to constrain NAND Flash shipment growth.

Micron has been on a spending spree in Taiwan, where the company has been looking for new facilities. Micron has agreed to buy no less than three LCD plants from display maker AUO, which are located in the central Taiwanese city of Taichung. Micron is looking at paying NT$ 8.1 billion (~US$253.3 million). Initially, Micron was interested in buying another plant in Tainan from Innolux, but was turned down, so Micron turned to AUO for the purchases. Earlier this year, TSMC spent NT$17 billion (~US$531.6 million) to buy a similar facility from Innolux, but it seems that Innolux wasn't willing to part with any more facilities this year.

The three AUO plants are said to have produced LCD colour filters and the two of the plants had closed for production earlier this month. However, it appears that for some reason, the plant that is still in operation, will be leased by AUO and the company will continue production of colour filters in the factory. The larger plant measures 146,033 square metres, with the smaller measuring 32,500 square metres. As for Micron's plans, not much is known at this point in time, but the company has announced that it's planning on using at least some of the space for front-end wafer testing and that the new plants will support its current and upcoming DRAM production fabs in Taichung and Taoyuan, which the company is currently expanding. Market sources in Taiwan are quoted as saying that the focus will be on HBM memory, due to the high demand from various AI products in the market, least not from NVIDIA. The deal is expected to be finalised by the end of the year.

Micron Technology, Inc., today announced it is the first to develop PCIe Gen 6 data center SSD technology for ecosystem enablement as part of a portfolio of memory and storage products to support the broad demand for AI. Addressing these demands, Raj Narasimhan, senior vice president and general manager of Micron's Compute and Networking Business Unit, will present a keynote at FMS titled, "Data is at the heart of AI: Micron memory and storage are fueling the AI revolution," on Wednesday, Aug. 7, at 11:00 a.m. Pacific time. The session will focus on how Micron's industry-leading products are impacting AI system architectures while enabling faster and more power-efficient solutions to manage vast data sets.

At FMS, Micron will demonstrate that it is the first to develop a PCIe Gen 6 SSD for ecosystem enablement, once again showcasing its storage technology leadership. By making this technology — which delivers sequential read bandwidths of over 26 GB/s — available to partners, Micron is kickstarting the PCIe Gen 6 ecosystem. This achievement builds on Micron's recent announcement of the world's fastest data center SSD, the Micron 9550, and further bolsters Micron's leadership position in AI storage.

SK hynix is reportedly developing 400-layer NAND flash memory, with plans to begin mass production by late 2025. The company is collaborating with supply chain partners to develop the necessary process technologies and equipment for 400-layer and higher NAND chips. This information comes from a recent article by Korean media outlet etnews citing industry sources.

SK hynix intends to use hybrid bonding technology to achieve this, which is expected to bring new packaging materials and components suppliers into the supply chain. The development process involves exploring new bonding materials and various technologies for connecting different wafers, including polishing, etching, deposition, and wiring. SK hynix aims to have the technology and infrastructure ready by the end of next year.

Micron Technology, Inc., announced today that it is shipping ninth-generation (G9) TLC NAND in SSDs, making it the first in the industry to achieve this milestone. Micron G9 NAND features the industry's highest transfer speed of 3.6 GB/s, delivering unsurpassed bandwidth for reading and writing data. The new NAND enables best-in-class performance for artificial intelligence (AI) and other data-intensive use cases from personal devices and edge servers to enterprise and cloud data centers.

"The shipment of Micron G9 NAND is a testament to Micron's prowess in process technology and design innovations," said Scott DeBoer, executive vice president of Technology and Products at Micron. "Micron G9 NAND is up to 73% denser than competitive technologies in the market today, allowing for more compact and efficient storage solutions that benefit both consumers and businesses."

Marvell Technology, Inc., a leader in data infrastructure semiconductor solutions, today launched the Marvell Structera product line of Compute Express Link (CXL) devices that enable cloud data center operators to overcome memory performance and scaling challenges in general-purpose servers.

To address memory-intensive applications, data center operators add extra servers to get higher memory bandwidth and higher memory capacity. The compute capabilities from the added processors are typically not utilized for these applications, making the servers inefficient from cost and power perspectives. The CXL industry standard addresses this challenge by enabling new architectures that can efficiently add memory to general-purpose servers.

Intel Corporation today announced the appointment of Dr. Naga Chandrasekaran as chief global operations officer, executive vice president and general manager of Intel Foundry Manufacturing and Supply Chain organization. Chandrasekaran joins Intel from Micron, where he served as senior vice president for Technology Development. He will be a member of Intel's executive leadership team and report to CEO Pat Gelsinger.

Chandrasekaran succeeds Keyvan Esfarjani, who has decided to retire from Intel after nearly 30 years of dedicated service. Esfarjani's distinguished career set a strong foundation for Intel Foundry, and his leadership in global supply chain resilience and manufacturing excellence has helped to position Intel's business for long-term success. He will remain with Intel through the end of the year to ensure a seamless transition.

Micron Technology, Inc., today announced availability of the Micron 9550 NVMe SSD - the world's fastest data center SSD and industry leader in AI workload performance and power efficiency. The Micron 9550 SSD showcases Micron's deep expertise and innovation by integrating its own controller, NAND, DRAM and firmware into one world-class product. This integrated solution enables class-leading performance, power efficiency and security features for data center operators.

The Micron 9550 SSD delivers best-in-class performance with 14.0 GB/s sequential reads and 10.0 GB/s sequential writes to provide up to 67% better performance over similar competitive SSDs and enables industry-leading performance for demanding workloads such as AI. In addition, its random reads of 3,300 KIOPS are up to 35% better and random writes of 400 KIOPS are up to 33% better than competitive offerings.

Chinese memory manufacturer YMTC has filed a lawsuit against U.S.-based Micron in California, alleging infringement of 11 patents related to 3D NAND Flash and DRAM products. YMTC seeks to halt Micron's sales of the allegedly infringing products in the U.S. and demands royalty payments. Founded in Wuhan, China, in 2016, YMTC is a key player in China's efforts to develop a domestic chip industry. However, in October 2022, the U.S. government placed YMTC on its Entity List, restricting its access to advanced U.S. manufacturing equipment for 3D NAND chips with 128 layers or more.

Before these restrictions, YMTC had obtained certification from Apple for its 128-layer 3D NAND chips, with the US tech giant considering using YMTC chips to reduce costs and diversify its supply chain beyond Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron. The lawsuit specifically targets Micron's 3D NAND Flash products with 96, 128, 176, and 232 layers, as well as certain DDR5 SDRAM products. This legal action follows a similar suit filed by YMTC against Micron in November, alleging infringement of eight U.S. patents related to 3D NAND Flash. With government backing, Chinese firms are increasingly engaging in patent litigation both domestically and internationally. Last year alone, Chinese courts handled over 5,000 technical intellectual property and monopoly cases.

Micron Technology, Inc., today announced the availability of the Crucial P310 2230 Gen 4 NVMe solid-state drive (SSD), which empowers enthusiasts of handheld gaming and users of mini PCs and ultrathin laptops to store more games and data-intensive content at their fingertips without sacrificing speed or performance. With read and write speeds of 7,100 and 6,000 megabytes per second (MB/s), respectively, and capacities up to 2 terabytes (TB), the P310 2230 SSD packs a unique punch, offering high performance and capacity in a compact, power-efficient form factor.

"Today's contemporary games are storage- and performance-hungry, and this is especially true for handheld gamers who want to be able to quickly access all their favorite games at their fingertips," said Jonathan Weech, senior director of product marketing for Micron's Commercial Products Group. "We've built our Crucial P310 2230 Gen 4 SSD to satisfy this need for speed and more capacity, providing a dynamic, power-efficient SSD that allows gamers to build their dream gaming libraries, load multiworld games faster and extend battery life for a richer gaming experience on the go."

TrendForce's latest industry report on AI servers reveals that high demand for advanced AI servers from major CSPs and brand clients is expected to continue in 2024. Meanwhile, TSMC, SK hynix, Samsung, and Micron's gradual production expansion has significantly eased shortages in 2Q24. Consequently, the lead time for NVIDIA's flagship H100 solution has decreased from the previous 40-50 weeks to less than 16 weeks.

TrendForce estimates that AI server shipments in the second quarter will increase by nearly 20% QoQ, and has revised the annual shipment forecast up to 1.67 million units—marking a 41.5% YoY growth.

Micron Technology, Inc., today announced it is now sampling its multiplexed rank dual inline memory module (MRDIMMs). The MRDIMMs will enable Micron customers to run increasingly demanding workloads and obtain maximum value out of their compute infrastructure. For applications requiring more than 128 GB of memory per DIMM slot, Micron MRDIMMs outperform current TSV RDIMMs by enabling the highest bandwidth, largest capacity with the lowest latency and improved performance per watt to accelerate memory-intensive virtualized multi-tenant, HPC and AI data center workloads.1 The new memory offering is the first generation in the Micron MRDIMM family and will be compatible with Intel Xeon 6 processors.

"Micron's latest innovative main memory solution, MRDIMM, delivers the much-needed bandwidth and capacity at lower latency to scale AI inference and HPC applications on next-generation server platforms," said Praveen Vaidyanathan, vice president and general manager of Micron's Compute Products Group. "MRDIMMs significantly lower the amount of energy used per task while offering the same reliability, availability and serviceability capabilities and interface as RDIMMs, thus providing customers a flexible solution that scales performance. Micron's close industry collaborations ensure seamless integration into existing server infrastructures and smooth transitions to future compute platforms."

Micron has announced more precise timeframes for the commencement of operations at its two new memory facilities in the United States during its Q3 FY2024 results presentation. The company expects these fabs, located in Idaho and New York, to begin production between late 2026 and 2029. The Idaho fab, currently under construction near Boise, is slated to start operations between September 2026 and September 2027. Meanwhile, the New York facility is projected to come online in the calendar year 2028 or later, pending the completion of regulatory and permitting processes. These timelines align with Micron's original plans announced in 2022 despite recent spending optimizations. The company emphasizes that these investments are crucial to support supply growth in the latter half of this decade.

Micron's capital expenditure for FY2024 is set at approximately $8 billion, with a planned increase to around $12 billion in FY2025. This substantial rise in spending, targeting a mid-30s percentage of revenue, will support various technological advancements and facility expansions. A substantial portion of this increased investment - over $2 billion - will be dedicated to constructing the new fabs in Idaho and New York. Additional funds will support high-bandwidth memory assembly and testing, as well as the development of other fabrication and back-end facilities. Sanjay Mehrotra, Micron's CEO, underscored the importance of these investments, stating that the new capacity is essential to meet long-term demand and maintain the company's market position. He added that these expansions, combined with ongoing technology transitions in Asian facilities, will enable Micron to grow its memory bit supply in line with industry demand.

Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU) today announced results for its third quarter of fiscal 2024, which ended May 30, 2024.

Fiscal Q3 2024 highlights

• Revenue of $6.81 billion versus $5.82 billion for the prior quarter and $3.75 billion for the same period last year
• GAAP net income of $332 million, or $0.30 per diluted share
• Non-GAAP net income of $702 million, or $0.62 per diluted share
• Operating cash flow of $2.48 billion versus $1.22 billion for the prior quarter and $24 million for the same period last year

"Robust AI demand and strong execution enabled Micron to drive 17% sequential revenue growth, exceeding our guidance range in fiscal Q3," said Sanjay Mehrotra, President and CEO of Micron Technology. "We are gaining share in high-margin products like High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), and our data center SSD revenue hit a record high, demonstrating the strength of our AI product portfolio across DRAM and NAND. We are excited about the expanding AI-driven opportunities ahead, and are well positioned to deliver a substantial revenue record in fiscal 2025."

Competition among Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron is intensifying, with a focus on enhancing processing speed and efficiency in graphics DRAM (GDDR) for AI accelerators and cryptocurrency mining. Compared with High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), the GDDR7 has a faster data processing speed and a relatively low price. Since Nvidia is expected to use next-generation GDDR7 with its GeForce RTX50 Blackwell GPUs, competition will likely be as strong as the demand. We can see that by looking, for example, at the pace of new GDDR7 releases from the past two years.

In July 2022, Samsung Electronics developed the industry's first 32 Gbps GDDR7 DRAM, capable of processing up to 1.5 TB of data per second, a 1.4 times speed increase and 20% better energy efficiency compared to GDDR6. In February 2023, Samsung demonstrated its first GDDR7 DRAM with a pin rate of 37 Gbps. On June 4, Micron launched its new GDDR7 at Computex 2024, with speeds up to 32 Gbps, a 60% increase in bandwidth, and a 50% improvement in energy efficiency over the previous generation. Shortly after, SK Hynix introduced a 40 Gbps GDDR7, showcased again at Computex 2024, doubling the previous generation's bandwidth to 128 GB per second and improving energy efficiency by 40%.

Mimir IP, a South Korean patent management company, bought around 1,500 chip-related patents from SK hynix in May. They have now filed a lawsuit against the U.S. memory company Micron, accusing it of using these patents without permission, TrendForce reported. If Mimir wins, they could get up to USD 480 million in damages. The lawsuit, filed on June 3, also targets Tesla, Dell, HP, and Lenovo for using Micron's products. The patents in question are related to circuits, voltage measurement devices, and non-volatile memory devices.

The case is being heard in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas and the US International Trade Commission. This is the first time a South Korean company that acquired patents from domestic chipmakers has filed a lawsuit against a US semiconductor company. Officials from the involved companies have not commented. Micron, Samsung, and SK hynix have been changing how they deal with their patents recently, so this is not really a surprise move. In March 2023, Micron transferred over 400 chip-related patents to Lodestar Licensing Group. In June 2023, Samsung transferred 96 US chip patents, including the right to file patent infringement complaints, to IKT, an affiliate of Samsung Display.

GIGABYTE today launched its flagship M.2 NVMe SSD, the AORUS Gen5 14000 series. The drive packs the winning combination of Phison PS5026-E26 Max14um controller, with Micron B58R 232-layer 3D TLC NAND flash memory, along with a fast LPDDR4 DRAM cache. The drive comes in 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB capacity variants. The maximum speeds vary for the three.

The 2 TB model is the fastest of the three, with a sequential read speed of up to 14,500 MB/s, and sequential write speed of up to 12,700 MB/s. The 4 TB model is the second fastest, with up to 14,100 MB/s sequential reads, and up to 12,600 MB/s sequential writes. The 1 TB model is third, with up to 13,600 MB/s sequential reads, and up to 10,200 MB/s sequential writes. All three models come without a heatsink, with just a metal film label on top. GIGABYTE recommends pairing the drive with M.2 SSD cooling solutions included with your motherboard to minimize performance throttling. The company didn't announce pricing.

TrendForce reveals that the DRAM industry experienced a 5.1% revenue increase in 1Q24 compared to the previous quarter. This growth—reaching US$18.35 billion—was driven by rising contract prices for mainstream products, with the price increase being more significant than in 4Q23. As a result, most companies in the industry continued to see revenue growth.

The top three suppliers experienced a decline in shipments in the first quarter, demonstrating the industry's off-season effect. Additionally, downstream companies had higher inventory levels, which led to a significant reduction in procurement volume. As for ASP, the top three suppliers continued to benefit from contract price increases seen in 4Q23. With inventory levels still healthy, there was a strong intention to raise prices.

The race is on for memory manufacturers to bring the next generation GDDR7 graphics memory into mass production. While rivals Samsung and Micron are aiming to have GDDR7 chips available in Q4 of 2024, South Korean semiconductor giant SK Hynix revealed at Computex 2024 that it won't kick off mass production until the first quarter of 2025. GDDR7 is the upcoming JEDEC standard for high-performance graphics memory, succeeding the current GDDR6 and GDDR6X specifications. The new tech promises significantly increased bandwidth and capacities to feed the appetites of next-wave GPUs and AI accelerators. At its Computex booth, SK Hynix showed off engineering samples of its forthcoming GDDR7 chips, with plans for both 16 Gb and 24 Gb densities.

The company is targeting blazing-fast 40 Gbps data transfer rates with its GDDR7 offerings, outpacing the 32 Gbps rates its competitors are starting with on 16 Gb parts. If realized, higher speeds could give SK Hynix an edge, at least initially. While trailing a quarter or two behind Micron and Samsung isn't ideal, SK Hynix claims having working samples now validates its design and allows partners to begin testing and qualification. Mass production timing for standardized memories also doesn't necessarily indicate a company is "late" - it simply means another vendor secured an earlier production window with a specific customer. The GDDR7 transition is critical for SK Hynix and others, given the insatiable demand for high-bandwidth memory to power AI, graphics, and other data-intensive workloads. Hitting its stated Q1 2025 mass production target could ensure SK Hynix doesn't fall too far behind in the high-stakes GDDR7 race, with faster and higher-density chips to potentially follow shortly after volume ramp.

Micron is getting ready to set sail with the new GDDR7 memory, and being NVIDIA's long-term partner, both are gaining big with the GeForce RTX 4000 Series. A few days ago, Micron announced its imminent launch of GDDR7 memory, remember that in March JEDEC published the GDDR7 memory standard. The interesting part is that an even more important piece of information was provided in one of Micron's slide-deck, the one that shows GDDR7 gaming performance. Officially Micron says that GDDR7 can be 3.1x faster than GDDR6 and 1.5x faster than GDDR6X. However, the slide in question provides some normalized FPS performance for ray tracing, and rasterization under game testing conditions. Until now, everything is clear, what comes next is our speculation and assumptions, based on previous knowledge so please, take it with a grain of salt. Will it be a hard guess, looking over those graphs, to tell that NVIDIA's RTX 5090 offers up to a 42% improvement over the RTX 4090 in rasterization, and up to 48% in ray tracing?

NVIDIA is getting closer to releasing its next-gen GPU with the RTX 5090 graphics card. Micron is in a strong partnership with NVIDIA and it's expected that its next gen graphics cards will use Micron GDDR7 memory. Now, we know that, at least for Ray Tracing, one real-world benchmark is Cyberpunk 2077, and it could be also the case here, from the graphs it looks very much like Ray Tracing was tested with Path Tracing. For Rasterization performance another hard guess is that perhaps it's either Starfield or Assassin's Creed Mirage. Presumably, tests were made using also AMD RX 7900XTX, and NVIDIA RTX 4090 to get GDDR6 reference. Time will tell if we made the right prediction.

Micron Technology, Inc., today announced the sampling of its next-generation GDDR7 graphics memory with the industry's highest bit density. Leveraging Micron's 1β (1-beta) DRAM technology and innovative architecture, Micron GDDR7 delivers 32 Gb/s high-performance memory in a power-optimized design. With over 1.5 TB/s of system bandwidth, which is up to 60% higher bandwidth than GDDR6, and four independent channels to optimize workloads, Micron GDDR7 memory enables faster response times, smoother gameplay and reduced processing times.

GDDR7 also provides a greater than 50% power-efficiency improvement compared to GDDR6 to better thermals and lengthen battery life, while the new sleep mode reduces standby power by up to 70%. Advanced reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) features on Micron GDDR7 enhance device dependability and data integrity without compromising performance, broadening the spectrum of applications for Micron GDDR7 to AI, gaming and high-performance computing workloads.