Micron Breaks Ground on Hiroshima Plant, to Invest 1.4 Trillion Won in Next-Generation HBM Production

[Financial News, Tokyo = Correspondent Seo Hye-jin] U.S. semiconductor company Micron has broken ground on a major new investment in Hiroshima aimed at the artificial intelligence (AI) era. The company plans to develop its Hiroshima plant, Japan's only DRAM production base, into a cutting-edge memory manufacturing hub and make it a key pillar of the AI semiconductor supply chain.
According to Nikkei, Inc. on the 6th, Micron held a groundbreaking ceremony for the new plant on the 4th in Higashihiroshima City, Hiroshima Prefecture.
Micron will invest 150 billion yen, or about 1.425 trillion won, in the facility to expand production capacity for next-generation DRAM and High Bandwidth Memory (HBM). Production equipment will begin arriving at the new plant in the second half of 2028, and the company plans to gradually ramp up output on the roughly 28,000-square-meter site.
The investment is one of the key projects in the Japanese government's strategy to strengthen the semiconductor supply chain. METI will also provide up to 536 billion yen, or about 590 billion won, in support.
The new production building will manufacture cutting-edge DRAM and next-generation HBM. Manish Bhatia, Micron's senior executive vice president, said the company plans to produce products after its advanced DRAM '1gamma' node and is also pursuing production of the next process node, '1delta,' as well as next-generation HBM4E. HBM is a core memory component for AI servers. Used alongside GPUs that handle AI computing, it is seen as one of the biggest beneficiaries of rising investment in generative AI.
The investment also carries strong symbolic weight. Japan has KIOXIA Corporation producing NAND flash memory, but its DRAM manufacturing base disappeared after Elpida Memory went bankrupt in 2012. Micron's Hiroshima plant is Japan's only DRAM production site. If the facility also begins producing advanced HBM for AI, Japan's high-end memory supply chain is expected to become even stronger.
Challenges remain, however. It has not yet been decided whether to build back-end packaging facilities in Japan, which are essential to HBM competitiveness. If such facilities are also established in the country, Japan's AI semiconductor supply chain is expected to become even more complete.
sjmary@fnnews.com Reporter