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Micron Technology history
Micron Technology company history timeline
Micron began in 1978 as a four-person semiconductor design company in the basement of a Boise, Idaho, dental office.
Micron was founded in Boise, Idaho, in 1978 by Ward Parkinson, Joe Parkinson, Dennis Wilson, and Doug Pitman as a semiconductor design consulting company.
It is one of the important names in semiconductor industry. It was established in 1978 and is headquartered at Boise, Idaho.
Industry pundits and, more important, loan officers and venture capitalists strongly believed no new United States memory chip manufacturer could enter the market as late as 1979 and hope to succeed--certainly not a tiny company based in Boise, Idaho.
McDonalds in turn invested $1 million in Micron in 1980 and later poured tens of millions of dollars into Micron.
In 1981, they were able make a break through by realizing its first wafer fabrication unit.
In 1981, the company moved from consulting to manufacturing with the completion of its first wafer fabrication unit ("Fab 1"), producing 64K DRAM chips.
Finally, two United States companies, Texas Instruments and Motorola, began volume production of 64K chips the following year, whereas other American contenders, Intel, National Semiconductor, and Mostek did not begin production until late 1982.
Micron shipped over one million chips in 1982, not by itself a noteworthy achievement when compared to the production totals of its competitors, but notable in the quality and size of its chips.
But the company achieved a technological breakthrough in early 1983 by dramatically reducing the size of its chips, making them roughly half the size of Japan's leading chips and a third the size of Texas Instruments' comparable chips.
The financial rewards of this innovation in memory chip production arrived the following year, in 1984, the same year Micron became a publicly held corporation.
That impressive growth enabled the company to go public in 1984.
National Semiconductor suspended plans to market a 256K chip in 1985, Intel announced it was closing all of its RAM production during the fall, and United Technologies closed Mostek's operations the same year.
The company had to cope without half of its work force, which was laid off in the spring of 1985, and without one of its two production lines, which also fell victim to the pernicious downward swing of memory chip prices.
In 1985, the price of 64K chips plummeted from approximately $4 to 25 cents, and the price of 256K chips fell from $20 at the beginning of the year to $2.50 by its conclusion.
Sales climbed to $446.4 million in 1989 and earnings increased modestly to $106.1 million.
In 1991, Micron entered the personal computer market with the establishment of a new subsidiary, Edge Technology, Inc.
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In response to growing demand for memory chips, in 1994 Micron announced plans to build a new $1.3 billion manufacturing complex in Utah.
In 1994, founder Joe Parkinson retired as CEO and Steve Appleton took over as Chairman, President, and CEO.
Beginning in late 1995, a glut of memory chips started a price spiral that was to severely damage Micron's profits.
1996--98: Oversupply and Shrinking Profits
In 1996, Micron Computer and Micron Custom Manufacturing Services (MCMS), ZEOS international were incorporated into the evolution of Micron Electronics.
In the very next year, in 1997, Micron Technology brought NetFrame systems Incorporated.
Despite financial woes, the company expanded its operations in late 1998 with the acquisition of Texas Instruments' memory division.
In 1998, Micron attributed 46 percent of its revenues to memory chip sales and 48 percent to its Micron Electronics division's sales of PC systems.
By the middle of the company's fiscal 1999, however, sales of computer systems had dropped off, making up only 36 percent of total sales.
In 2000, Gurtej Singh Sandhu and Trung T. Doan at Micron initiated the development of atomic layer deposition high-k films for DRAM memory devices.
Micron and Intel created a joint venture in 2005, based in IM Flash Technologies in Lehi, Utah.
In 2006, Micron acquired Lexar, an American manufacturer of digital media products.
The company again changed leadership in June 2007 with COO Mark Durcan becoming President.
The core company suffered setbacks, however, requiring layoffs of 15 percent of its workforce in October 2008, during which period the company also announced the purchase of Qimonda's 35.6% stake in Inotera Memories for $400 million.
In 2008, Micron had converted the Avezzano chip fab, formerly a Texas Instruments DRAM fab, into a production facility for CMOS image sensors sold by Aptina Imaging.
The trend of layoffs and acquisitions continued in 2009 with the termination of an additional 2,000 employees, and the acquisition of the FLCOS microdisplay company Displaytech.
Micron agreed to buy flash-chip maker Numonyx for $1.27 billion in stock in February 2010.
The two companies formed another joint venture in 2011, IM Flash Singapore, in Singapore.
Intel, in 2012 sold its share of IM Flash Singapore and IM Flash Technologies assets in Manassas, Virginia to Micron.
Micron Technology owned the major share of Inotera Memories, a leading DRAM maker in Taiwan by 2012.
Again in 2012, Micron decided to buy Elpida Memory, which was bankrupt at that point of time and also decided to purchase further a 24% share in Rexchip Electronis from Powerchip.
In 2012, Micron became sole owner of this second joint venture.
In 2013, the Avezzano chip fab was sold to LFoundry.
The first quarter of 2014 witnessed an increase of 42% of profit as compared to its previous quarter.
The company was eventually acquired for $400 million by ON Semiconductor in 2014.
The market capitalization of Micron was $32 billion in January 2015.
In December 2016, Micron finished acquiring the remaining 67% of Inotera, making it a 100% subsidiary of Micron.
In April 2017, Micron announced Sanjay Mehrotra as the new President and CEO to replace Mark Durcan.
In June 2017, Micron announced it was discontinuing the Lexar retail removable media storage business and putting some or all it up for sale.
On December 5, 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.
In May 2018, Micron Technology and Intel launched QLC NAND memory to increase storage density.
In February 2019, the first microSD card with a storage capacity of 1 terabyte (TB) was announced by Micron.
In September 2020, the company introduced the world's fastest discrete graphics memory solution.
In November 2020, the company unveiled a new 176-layer 3D NAND chip.
Micron closed the sale of its Lehi, Utah fab to Texas Instruments on October 22, 2021.
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Micron Technology competitors
| Company name | Founded date | Revenue | Employee size | Job openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microchip Technology | 1989 | $7.6B | 19,500 | 220 |
| Texas Instruments | 1930 | $15.6B | 29,888 | 229 |
| Intel | 1968 | $53.1B | 121,100 | 595 |
| Amd | 1969 | $25.8B | 15,500 | 573 |
| Skyworks Solutions | 1962 | $4.2B | 11,300 | 104 |
| Dell | 1984 | $95.6B | 165,000 | 168 |
| Semiconductor Components Industries, LLC | 1999 | - | 9,570 | - |
| Librato, Inc. | - | $13.0B | 63,800 | - |
| Qorvo | 2015 | $3.8B | 7,900 | - |
| Cypress | 2009 | $2.2B | 5,871 | 48 |
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Micron Technology may also be known as or be related to Micron Technology, Inc., Micron Technology, Micron Technology Foundation, Inc. and Micron Technology Inc.