Micron to invest $3.7 billion in Japan for new DRAM chips

The latest extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) chipmaking machines will be used to make 1-gamma chips, which can be used for mass production of material required in complex applications such as image processing networks.

Micron will be the first semiconductor company to bring EUV technology to Japan for production, the company said, adding that it expects to ramp EUV into production on the 1-gamma node in Taiwan and Japan from 2025 onwards.

The announcement comes after the US memory chip maker kicked off mass production of its new high-capacity low-power 1-beta dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips at its plant in Hiroshima last year.

DRAM chips are memory chips that lose the memory when the power is off.

Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida said he expected additional investment from global chipmakers in Japan after meeting top executives on Thursday ahead of a Group of Seven (G7) summit.

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Speaking to the reporters after meeting the executives, including those from Intel Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, Kishida said the G7 leaders would discuss stabilising supply chains in their talks in Hiroshima.Executives from Micron Technology Inc, IBM Corp, Applied Materials and Samsung Electronics, among others, also met Kishida.

Japan has been striving to reinvigorate its chip sector, whose global market share has fallen to about 10% from around 50% in the late 1980s, while the United States is increasingly urging its allies to work together to counter China’s chips and advanced technology development.