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As much as we may find the advance in technology to be somewhat miraculous over the years, perhaps the true wonder of such things is what we don’t see. For instance, right now you have a smartphone that is more powerful than the PC you may have owned just a few years back. Perhaps you still own that PC. If we dig into that smartphone, or PC, or just about any form of electronics, one of its most basic concepts starts with a grain of sand, believe it or not. That grain of sand is heated and melted and cut and formed and built upon and then cut once again in the form of DRAM, SDRAM, flash memory, SSDs and CMOS imaging chips. This is where Micron Technology (MU) and its somewhat magical silicon wafer come in.
A TRULY AMERICAN SUCCESS STORY
Micron Technology (MU) was first started in the basement of a Boise dental office on October 5, 1978 by four men; Ward and Joe Parkinson, Dennis Wilson (not the Beach Boys Dennis Wilson) and Doug Pitman. They formed a semiconductor design company with their primary design being the 64K memory chip, but when their sole customer (Mostek Semiconductor) was bought out, funding dried up and they transitioned over to the manufacture of DRAM chips.
In 1980 Micron broke ground on its first fabrication site in Boise, Idaho and in 1981, they shipped their first 64K DRAM chip. One of its first successes was within the ever popular Commodore 64 computer. This was quite a venture with Micron being the first truly USA born and bred DRAM manufacturer competing with a Japanese controlled memory chip market. The only other similar US based facilities were found in Texas and Silicon Valley, seemingly worlds away from Boise, Idaho.
MICRON SUCCESS AND MCDONALD’S FROZEN FRENCH FRIES
Micron’s success started very early and one might say that Micron just might not be where it is today without McDonald’s Restaurant success and Mr. J.R. Simplot. J.R Simplot’s lineage began way back in 1923 where he started working on a potato farm in Delco, Idaho. His success grew and he was eventually granted the first frozen french fry patent in 1953. In 1967, Mr. Simplot and McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc shook hands on a contract that would see Simplot providing frozen french fries to the chain. By 1972, all McDonalds french fries were frozen.
In a way, we can credit the potato for being the pinnacle of success for Micron Technology as it was J.R Simplot’s and other local Idaho farmer investments of millions that enabled Micron’s growth. This photo above depicts Mr Simplot at Micron’s first semiconductor plant groundbreaking in 1980. In 1984, Micron introduced the world’s smallest 256K DRAM product and became a publicly traded company.
Consider this, if you bought just 10 shares of Micron stock when initially offered back in 1984 for a total cost of $140, it would be valued at around $1.7-1.9 million today. Not such a bad investment after all.
PHOTO BEGINNINGS TO MICRON’S FUTURE
This photo depicts Micron’s first fabrication plant built in 1981.
This is a slightly less than current photo of Micron’s Headquarters in Boise, Idaho. Micron has grown to a company of over 50,000 employees worldwide with 6500 employees at the Micron Boise Headquarters alone. These figures don’t include indirect employment with an estimated 15000-17000 jobs outside of Micron being attributed to the company.
This last photo is Micron today, photo credit going to Kelly Ross, Micron Global Communications and Marketing Photographer and the photo was taken on July 11, 2025. It depicts construction of the first of two additional Fabs being built in Boise with the first being valued at $15 billion. Micron has announced investments in the U.S. over the next twenty-plus years of $200 billion, with $150 billion intended for these manufacturing facilities in Idaho and new facilities planned for Clay, New York, while $50 billion is ear marked for research and development.
This fab will include cleanroom space of approximately 600,000 square feet which is the equivalent of ten football fields and will also contain a 2800 stall parking garage, the largest in the State. As a form of comparison, the present fab is 100,000 square feet.
Up next, our article explores a very rare opportunity enjoyed by few which was a Micron Fabrication plant tour! Follow along as we elaborate on some of the public, and not so public areas within the Micron Technology Development Fab.
