Micron hosted an event at its headquarters today to mark the opening of a new facility which could play a critical role in the company's research into breakthrough new memory and storage technologies of the future.

This expanded facility in Boise is the focal point for developing new semiconductor manufacturing processes and designs for the company's future memory and storage technologies. Once developed in the Boise R&D center, these processes are then transitioned into production-scale manufacturing in Micron's network of 12 large scale manufacturing plants (fabs) around the world.

Construction of the new clean-room facility began in October 2015 to create a precision-controlled environment for development and fabrication of advanced memory integrated circuits. The foundation of the building required 24,000 cubic yards of concrete, the equivalent of a concrete truck delivery every hour for 100 days straight. Ten million pounds of steel were used to house this advanced research center, and the structure contains 240 miles of wire in the building alone, enough to reach the International Space Station.

Scott DeBoer, Technology Development Executive Vice President, highlighted that Micron's DRAM technology (1Ynm) has now transitioned from Boise R&D and into Micron's production fab in Hiroshima, Japan. Over the past year, the R&D team has also successfully completed the development process in Boise for 64-layer 3D NAND, and moved the technology from initial development in Boise all the way through to volume production in Micron's Singapore fabs.