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Micron commits $10 billion to new US-based Research Labs — Boise hub to target post-DRAM and NAND technologies and packaging
Micron on Thursday announced a plan to establish the Micron Research Lab, which will explore memory, computing, packaging, and semiconductor manufacturing technologies that could be used commercially more than a decade from now. The facility will bring together expertise from Micron itself as well as its customers, government organizations, startups, universities, and partners in a bid to develop pre-competitive IP that will be required years away. The company plans to invest $10 billion over the next 10 years in the initiative.
Traditionally, universities, R&D organizations, and internal R&D units of large companies research new materials, architectures, phenomena, methods, and technologies that are years, if not decades, away from commercial deployment. Then, companies like Micron build new products using that fundamental IP to build actual products. As products and technologies become more complex, the time it takes a pre-competitive IP to become a product stretches, while R&D operations become more costly. This is where joint development operations like Micron's Research Lab come into play, as they bring fundamental research closer to developers of actual products.
Micron's Research Lab will focus on future memory technologies, advanced memory and compute architectures, advanced packaging, and next-generation semiconductor manufacturing. As Micron itself puts it, rather than simply develop subsequent generations of DRAM or NAND, the Research Lab will investigate technologies beyond Micron's existing product and technology roadmaps.
"With a planned $10 billion investment in Micron Research Labs, we are looking around the corner to the memory and compute systems the future will demand, bringing together the best minds across academia, government, startups and industry," said Sanjay Mehrotra, Chairman, President and CEO of Micron.
Micron envisions that its Research Lab will be capable of accommodating hundreds of researchers and operate as part of a considerably larger network. The company plans to finance collaborations with universities, establish satellite laboratories around the world, and work closely with external research partners. The network will connect Boise with Micron's existing R&D operations across the U.S., Europe, Japan, India, Singapore, and Taiwan, to move fundamental discoveries toward practical semiconductor technologies.
"Innovation is about turning bold ideas into discoveries that change the world. Micron Research Labs reflects the kind of long-term investment in fundamental research and innovation that is needed to keep America at the forefront," said Jonathan Levin, President of Stanford University. "I look forward to the collaborations the Labs will enable with academic institutions to advance the science of memory and computing, and power the next era of discovery."
Global collaboration on fundamental research is nothing new in the semiconductor world. However, Micron's Research Lab will be the first organization of its kind that will bring together fundamental research dedicated specifically to memory and conducted by different organizations.
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"Micron understands the power of both academic and industry research and is driving innovation in the national security sector," said Jim Davis, President of The University of Texas at Austin. "This investment is the kind of long-term commitment that will produce breakthroughs and unlock new opportunities for our students, researchers, and industry partners."
The research organization will be based in a new facility near Micron's global R&D center in Boise, Idaho, though this will not be its only base. In addition to laboratories, the site is expected to host research conferences, workshops, and innovation forums that bring together scientists and engineers from Micron and external organizations. The company expects to break ground on the Boise facility in calendar 2027.
Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.
