Syracuse — In May, Micron Technology said it would start construction this year on two semiconductor manufacturing plants in the town of Clay, and have them up and running by 2032.
Now, as a federal environmental review is just beginning, the company says construction won’t start until sometime in 2025. But Micron says it will shorten its construction schedule and have the first two chip-making plants open ahead of schedule.
Micron isn’t the only big chip maker adjusting its announced schedules to launch new semiconductor plants. Other big chip makers, including Intel, also have delayed their plans. The companies are citing labor and supply shortages and the slow rollout of federal money.
Intel had originally announced it would open its first fabrication plant, or fab, in central Ohio next year; now the company says it will be 2027 or 2028. Taiwan Manufacturing Semiconductor Co., the world’s largest chip maker, has announced several construction delays of its proposed plant in Arizona. Even several TMSC suppliers now say their plans are on hold.
The delays could be a sign that semiconductor companies were overly optimistic in their original plans or that the Biden administration’s hopes of jump-starting chip production in the U.S. is harder than expected.
Or some of both.
One sticking point had been the longer-than-expected announcements of grants from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which offered $52 billion in incentives to lure chipmakers back to the United States as a national security priority. Most of the world’s chips are made overseas, largely in Taiwan, which sits just 100 miles from China.
One industry analyst said chip companies expected to know the scope of their awards months ago.
The big grants have finally started to roll out. GlobalFoundries was awarded $1.5 billion in CHIPS grants and $1.6 billion in loans to expand its fabs in Saratoga County and Vermont. On Wednesday, Intel received $8.5 billion in grants and $11 billion in loans. U.S. Department of Commerce officials said that will be the largest award package.
Micron officials won’t say when they expect to hear about the awards and how much the company might get.
“We are working through the process,” was all Carson Henry, Micron’s senior director of strategic U.S. expansion, would say at a news conference Tuesday night in Clay.
Carson said Micron had set “a very, very aggressive target” last year when it laid out a construction timeline.
“We’re moving as quickly as we can,” Henry said. “Our schedule right now is early 2025. When we look at a 20-year project, that sort of timing difference is relatively small.”
The new construction schedule is even more aggressive. Initially, Micron said it would start building in 2024 and open the first two fabs by 2032, an eight-year construction timetable. Construction time has now been shrunk to four years, from 2025 groundbreaking to 2029 production start.
Intel started working on its $20 billion fab complex near Columbus, Ohio, in 2022, intending to open by 2025. In a report filed this week with the Ohio development office, however, the company now says it will be 2027 or 2028 before the first chips are produced. Intel’s plans rival Micron’s, with a planned investment of up to $100 billon.
TSMC has delayed its plant in Arizona several times, citing labor shortages and negotiations with federal officials for CHIPS grants.
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