It’s official: Micron to get $6.1 billion in federal subsidies for Boise, New York plants

Micron has inked a deal for $6.1 billion in subsidies from the federal government to help pay for its chip-making plants in Boise and New York state, the Biden administration announced Thursday.

President Joe Biden was traveling to Syracuse, New York, on Thursday to tout the award. The preliminary, nonbinding agreement will mobilize the economy and strengthen national security, a White House news release said. The federal funding was authorized by the CHIPS and Science Act, which Biden signed in August 2022.

Micron’s plants in Idaho and New York state will create over 11,000 jobs at Micron, 9,000 construction jobs and tens of thousands of indirect jobs, the company has said.

“This project is a rebirth, a dramatic turning point for upstate New York, and will reverse decades of lost manufacturing jobs and make the region a global epicenter for cutting-edge microchip manufacturing,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said in a Thursday news release.

A preliminary illustration of Micron’s future $15 billion semiconductor fabrication plant, or fab, on its Southeast Boise campus.

The Boise-based company has said that it plans to spend $125 billion over the next two decades to build the fabs, short for semiconductor fabrication, making for the largest private investment in the history of both states, the White House said.

Micron had previously shared plans for a “mega fab” in upstate New York, which would dwarf the one under construction alongside the company’s primary research-and-development center at its headquarters campus in Southeast Boise. Construction of the “mega fab” in Clay, New York — outside Syracuse — is expected to begin in 2025.

The “mega fab” would be a four-fab manufacturing complex that produces dynamic random-access memory, or DRAM, used in smartphones, computers and other devices to temporarily store data as they function. Micron is the only U.S. manufacturer of DRAM. It also makes flash memory, which is used in similar devices to store data permanently.

Each fab in the complex is slated to have 600,000 square feet of clean rooms, totaling 2.4 million square feet of clean room space across the four buildings — the size of nearly 40 football fields, according to Micron.

A Micron employee moves through a clean room at a fab on the memory-chip maker’s Southeast Boise campus.

The Boise fab will also produce DRAM, with about600,000 square feet of clean room space.

“I’m thrilled that our own home-grown company, Micron, will receive significant funding through the CHIPS and Science Act, and I thank President Biden for his leadership and commitment to growing American jobs and companies,” Boise Mayor Lauren McLean said in a news release.

The addition to the $6.1 billion in grants from the Department of Commerce, Micron is slated to benefit from the Treasury Department’s investment tax credit, which provides a credit of 25% for qualified capital investments.

And, New York state has offered $5.5 billion in incentives over the life of the project, including a 5% investment tax credit on qualified capital investments and 7.5% of eligible non-construction labor costs. The company is also getting an incentive package from Idaho, which includes a reduction in state taxes related to the project and investments in semiconductor workforce training programs, according to a news release from the Department of Commerce.

Micron is Idaho’s largest for-profit employer, with more than 5,000 employees, according to the Idaho Department of Labor. The company has multiple fabs and related operations overseas. Micron says it employs 44,000 people worldwide.

Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra, center, is joined by Idaho Gov. Brad Little and Boise Mayor Lauren McLean in placing a ceremonial plaque at the construction site of a new fab in Southeast Boise in October 2023.

A spokesperson for Micron told the Idaho Statesman Thursday morning that details regarding how the $6.1 billion will be divided between the projects in Idaho and New York state are confidential.

“Micron is already a leader for and from Idaho, but the latest commitments and funding mean that Micron will be a national and global leader for decades to come,” Gov. Brad Little said in a news release. “Micron and the state of Idaho have a long-standing partnership and I look forward to our continued cooperation as we pursue a shared goal of building opportunity for Idahoans through chip manufacturing.”

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