Selangor Journal

MITI: RM1.5 BILLION GREENFIELD EXPANSION IN MALAYSIA BY MICRON TECHNOLOGY

Photo taken from Borneo Today

KUALA LUMPUR (Bernama) – YB Datuk Darell Leiking, Minister of International Trade and Industry (MITI) yesterday announced that Micron Technology, Inc. intends to increase its presence in Malaysia with a greenfield investment to build a Center of Excellence for Solid-state Drive (SSD) Assembly and Test. The new project, which includes producing 3D advance storage and memory packages, will raise the country’s profile as a preferred location for next generation storage and memory products.

“Micron’s expansion in Malaysia supports our strategy to build a scalable, agile and well-positioned global capacity model,” said Micron Technology’s Backend Operations Senior Vice President Gursharan Singh. “The new greenfield location in Penang for SSD manufacturing will enhance our NAND center of excellence in Southeast Asia, building on our existing presence in Malaysia and Singapore, while ensuring a continued focus on better servicing customers and attracting and retaining the highest-quality talent.”

Micron selected Malaysia because of its close vicinity to its Singapore NAND Center of Excellence, which also has a strong team to help accelerate and support the factory ramp up plans. After a preliminary screening of locations in Malaysia, the Micron leadership selected the city of Penang.

“Micron’s facility in Penang will strengthen the local electrical and electronics (E&E) ecosystem as it will be integrating with best in class SSD manufacturing automation and Industry 4.0 manufacturing processes. Micron will undertake R&D activities and plans to collaborate with at least three to five local universities. This will contribute towards advancing the skill set of our talent in Malaysia by applying new technologies, industrial skills and professional know-how. Local companies will also be able to tap into opportunities to collaborate with Micron in the areas of robotics, automation, big data and artificial intelligence,” said YB MITI Minister.

Micron is expanding globally and Malaysia is its latest investment. Micron expects to break ground in the first half of 2019 with full production within two years. The company expects to grow in Penang with an initial hiring of 1,000 employees and a RM1.5 billion investment within five years.

Micron executives and leaders Mr. Manish Bhatia, Executive Vice President of Micron’s Global Operations, Mr. Gursharan Singh, Senior Vice President of Micron’s Global Backend Operations, and Mr. Amrinder Sidhu, Director Micron Legal, Singapore, met yesterday with YB Datuk Darell Leiking, Minister of MITI and Dato Azman, CEO of the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) at MITI Headquarters to discuss their growth plans.

In January to September 2018, MIDA approved 37 projects in the E&E industry worth RM10.6 billion. These are expected to create 9,420 job opportunities for the country. The top foreign investors were from The Netherlands, China, US, Japan, Taiwan, Republic of Korea, Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Singapore.

Investment from Micron into Malaysia will contribute towards more industry-academia initiatives for research & development in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics to spark a passion in the next generation of scientists and engineers. Such activities will encourage the development of manpower capability in Malaysia particularly in applying new technologies, industrial skills and professional know-how.

-BERNAMA

Top Picks

New tax incentive for Malaysian digital status companies — MDEC

Two foreigners arrested, suspected foreign workers’ syndicate masterminds

Queen distributes bubur lambuk at Masjid Jamek Kampung Baru