Micron was founded in Boise, Idaho, in 1978[5] by Ward Parkinson, Joe Parkinson, Dennis Wilson, and Doug Pitman as a semiconductor design consulting company.[6] Startup funding was provided by local Idaho businessmen Tom Nicholson, Allen Noble, Rudolph Nelson, and Ron Yanke. Later it received funding from Idaho billionaire
J. R. Simplot, whose fortune was made in the
potato business. In 1981, the company moved from consulting to manufacturing with the completion of its first
wafer fabrication unit ("Fab 1"), producing 64K DRAM chips.
A 1996 3-way merger among
ZEOS International, Micron Computer, and Micron Custom Manufacturing Services (MCMS) increased the size and scope of the company;[5] this was followed rapidly with the 1997 acquisition of NetFrame Systems, in a bid to enter the mid-range server industry.[8]
In 2002 Micron put its personal computer business up for sale. The company found the business difficult as the number 12 American computer maker with only 1.3 percent of the market.[11]
Micron and Intel created a joint venture in 2005, based in
IM Flash Technologies in
Lehi, Utah.[12] The two companies formed another joint venture in 2011,
IM Flash Singapore, in Singapore.[13] In 2012 Micron became sole owner of this second joint venture.[14] In 2006 Micron acquired
Lexar, an American manufacturer of digital media products.[3]
In 2008 Micron spun off Aptina Imaging, which was acquired by
ON Semiconductor in 2014. Micron retained a stake in the spinoff.[17] However, the core company suffered setbacks and had to layoff 15 percent of its workforce in October 2008,[18][19] during which period the company also announced the purchase of
Qimonda's 35.6 percent stake in
Inotera Memories for $400 million.[20] The trend of layoffs and acquisitions continued in 2009 with the termination of an additional 2,000 employees,[21][22] and the acquisition of the FLCOS microdisplay company Displaytech.[23] Micron agreed to buy flash-chip maker
Numonyx for $1.27 billion in stock in February 2010.[24]
On 3 February 2012 CEO Appleton died in a plane crash shortly after takeoff from the
Boise Airport. He was the pilot and sole occupant of the
Lancair IV aircraft.[25][26][27] Mark Durcan replaced Appleton as the CEO shortly thereafter,[28] eliminating his former title of President.[29]
In 2013 the Avezzano chip fab was sold to LFoundry.[16] In the 2012 to 2014 period, Micron again went through an acquisition-layoff cycle, becoming the majority shareholder of Inotera Memories, purchasing
Elpida Memory[30] for $2 billion and the remaining shares in Rexchip, a PC memory chip manufacturing venture between
Powerchip and Elpida Memory for $334 million,[31][32] while announcing plans to lay off approximately 3,000 workers.[33][34] Through the Elpida acquisition, Micron became a major supplier to
Apple Inc. for the
iPhone and
iPad.[30] In December 2016 Micron finished acquiring the remaining 67 percent of
Inotera, making it a 100 percent subsidiary of Micron.[35]
In April 2017 Micron announced
Sanjay Mehrotra as the new president and CEO to replace
Mark Durcan.[36][37] In June 2017 Micron announced it was discontinuing the Lexar retail removable media storage business and putting some or all it up for sale.[38] In August of that year the Lexar brand was acquired by Longsys, a flash memory company based in Shenzhen, China.[4]
On 5 December 2017 Micron sued rivals United Microelectronics Corporation and
Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co. (JHICC) in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging infringement on its DRAM patents and intellectual property rights.[39] Micron now owns the intellectual property from the defunct
Qimonda DRAM manufacturer.[40]
In May 2018 Micron Technology and Intel launched QLC NAND memory to increase storage density.[41] The company ranked 150th on the
Fortune 500 list of largest United States corporations by revenue.[42]
In February 2019 the first
microSD card with a storage capacity of 1
terabyte (TB) was announced by Micron.[43] As of March 2020 3.84TB Micron 5210 Ion is the cheapest large-capacity SSD in the world.[44] In September 2020 the company introduced the world's fastest discrete graphics memory solution. Working with computing technology leader Nvidia, Micron debuted GDDR6X in the
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 and GeForce RTX 3080 graphics processing units (GPUs).[45] In November 2020, the company unveiled a new 176-layer 3D NAND module. It offers improved read and write latency and is slated to be used in the production of a new generation of solid-state drives.[46]
On 22 October 2021, Micron closed the sale of IM Flash's Lehi, Utah fab to
Texas Instruments for a sale price of US$900 million.[47] With the passage of the
CHIPS and Science Act, Micron announced its pledge to invest billions in new manufacturing within the US.[48] In September 2022, Micron announced they would invest $15 billion in a new facility in
Boise, Idaho.[49] In October 2022 Micron announced a $100 billion expansion in
Clay, New York.[50][51]
On February 27, 2024, Judge Maxine Chesney of the U.S. Federal District Court in San Francisco acquitted Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit, whom Micron had sued for IP theft, of the charge in a non-jury verdict, believing that there was insufficient evidence to support the charge.[55][56]
Carbon footprint
Micron Technology reported total
CO2 emissions (direct and indirect) for the twelve months ending 31 December 2021 at 7,421 Kt (+280/+3.9 percent year-on-year).[57]