US memory chipmaker Micron Technology Inc yesterday said it had fully restored the operation of a fabrication factory in Taoyuan from a “minor facility event” and it expects no material impact on its business.
The clarification came after media outlets raised concern over potential production losses.
“Regarding recent rumors about Micron’s fabrication facility in Taoyuan, Taiwan, Micron hereby clarifies that there was no nitrogen leaking incident nor evacuation of personnel,” Micron said in a statement..
The chipmaker said there was “indeed a minor facility event, but operations are recovering speedily.”
The Taoyuan fab is also one of its global production sites for DRAM chips, the company said.
Micron has a large manufacturing network, allowing the company to respond quickly, mitigate the effects of incidents at any specific site and assure full operation of the business as a whole, the statement said.
However, market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) yesterday said that the incident could have an effect on upcoming shipments of Apple Inc’s new iPhone series, as Micron’s Taoyuan fab produces low-power DDR4 DRAM used in the devices.
The Taipei-based researcher said that production at Fab-2, one of Micron’s manufacturing plants in Taoyuan, was disrupted on Saturday last week due to a malfunction in the facility’s nitrogen gas dispensing system.
The incident has contaminated wafers during manufacturing and equipment, TrendForce said in a report.
It is expected that about 60,000 wafers from a total 125,000 this month have been delayed, given that the cleaning and restoration of production capacity are time-consuming, TrendForce said.
The production loss would cut 5.5 percent from global DRAM monthly output, totaling 1.14 million wafers this month, aggravating the already tight supply of DRAM chips, TrendForce said.
Micron’s Taoyuan Fab-2 primarily produces DRAM chips used in PCs, servers and mobile phones, TrendForce said.
The reduction in DRAM supply might squeeze a persistent supply crunch and drive chip prices up further, it said.
“Some [DRAM] suppliers are already hinting that price hikes are on the horizon,” TrendForce said in the report.
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