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Technology Stocks : Micron Only Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mike iles who wrote (24561)	11/26/1997 10:21:00 PM
From: Mark Taylor	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 53903

Micron Test Facility Will Open in March sltrib.com BY LISA CARRICABURU THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE ÿÿÿ BOISE -- A microchip testing facility Micron Technology Inc. has planned for Lehi will open ahead of schedule sometime in March, the company's chief executive officer said Tuesday. ÿÿÿ ''We need it,'' Steve Appleton, Micron president, chairman and CEO, said of the facility originally set to open sometime next summer. ''We're finishing it as quickly as we can with plans to open it as soon as it's complete.'' ÿÿÿ He said the testing facility, which will occupy only a fraction of Micron's unfinished 2.3-million-square-foot Lehi fabrication plant, will test overflow from the company's Boise plant, where production of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips and other Micron products has increased 220 percent this year. ÿÿÿ Micron has about 120 employees in Utah, Brad Mabe, human resources manager for Lehi, said last week. ÿÿÿ Speaking Tuesday after the company's annual shareholders meeting at Boise's Bank of America Centre, Appleton said the company is recruiting to increase that number to between 200 and 300. ÿÿÿ DRAM chips, which make up the bulk of Micron's business, will be shipped to personal-computer manufacturers and other customers from Lehi, he said. ÿÿÿ The testing facility, however, is the only section of the $2.5 billion plant that will be completed anytime soon. ÿÿÿ Micron Director John R. ''Jack'' Simplot, a major shareholder in the Boise-based firm, described the behemoth plant at the base of Traverse Ridge to fellow shareholders as ''a monument that is really something to look at.'' ÿÿÿ Micron already has spent $612 million on the project, and Simplot said the company ''has enough money in the bank to finish it.'' ÿÿÿ But Appleton said the plant -- which was to have employed up to 3,500 workers before declining microchip prices prompted Micron to indefinitely postpone its completion in February 1996 -- will not be completed until margins improve either through higher prices or through production-cost decreases. ÿÿÿ ''The very soonest it may happen is late 1998 or early 1999,'' he said. ÿÿÿ At the meeting, Appleton told shareholders the company has fared well despite having weathered the microchip industry's second consecutive year of negative revenue growth. ÿÿÿ ''We're in great shape. We're financially strong. No one will run us out of business,'' he said. ÿÿÿ Bill Stover, Micron chief financial officer, said the average price of a 16-megabit DRAM chip has decreased to $4.50 in the company's current first quarter from $12 in the fourth quarter of 1996. Two years ago, such chips were selling for $60. ÿÿÿ ''Think about how you would manage your household if your annual salary decreased from $50,000 to $19,000,'' he said. ÿÿÿ Despite the challenge, Appleton said Micron has decreased production costs 30 percent to 35 percent per year. He said the company has successfully converted to production of faster, new-generation chips. ÿÿÿ Micron is second or third in total market share, up from ninth place. As of Friday, it had $880 million in the bank, Stover said. ÿÿÿ Such statistics place Micron in a strong position compared with Asian competitors who have expanded so rapidly despite the market downturn that their debt is 300 percent to 400 percent the value of their companies, Appleton said. He added that an inability to pay debt has forced South Korea to appeal to the International Monetary Fund for a $20 billion bailout. ÿÿÿ The market still appears bleak, Stover said. ''But when you think about viewing it from the vantage point of our competitors, we have the best seat in the house.'' ÿÿÿ Appleton told shareholders that Micron is formulating how it will respond to South Korea's request for help. ÿÿÿ He said he is ''outraged'' at the prospect the United States may join the bailout, adding he does not believe it is appropriate to help countries whose problems arise from mismanagement that has hurt companies like Micron through what he called unfair competition. ÿÿÿ However, he added that trouble in Asia also may help Micron because its competitors may not be able to invest in new technology needed for them to remain competitive. ÿÿÿ ''Some may cut back or fall out, strengthening our position,'' Appleton said.