Micron Pours NT$1.6 Trillion Into Taiwan HBM Buildout as AI Memory Supply Tightens Into 2027

Micron and Nanya Technology are stepping up investment in Taiwan as memory makers expand advanced DRAM and AI-related capacity. Micron Taiwan chairman Donghui Lu said the company is bringing its most advanced memory processes to Taiwan, with its second HBM advanced packaging facility in Taichung set to begin operations in October 2026 and further expansion underway in Tongluo, Taoyuan and Tainan. Micron had invested more than NT$1.6 trillion in Taiwan as of June, with tens of billions more expected, and its investment over the past four years already matches the total from the previous roughly 25 years.

The four-site buildout is unusually broad. In Taichung, Micron's largest Taiwan base, the company is converting a conventional facility into a second advanced packaging plant that is expected to come online in mid-October 2026 and will primarily support HBM capacity expansion. In Tongluo, Micron is expanding front-end capacity at the P5 fab acquired from PSMC earlier this year, with more than 100 pieces of equipment already moved in and first-phase production targeted for the second half of 2027. Taoyuan's Fab 11E is being built for EUV equipment with future High-NA EUV factored into the design and start-up expected around 2028, while in Tainan a former AUO display panel plant is being converted into a three-storey cleanroom focused on front-end wafer testing, with equipment moving in since early September 2026.

Nanya Technology won approval from Taiwan's National Science and Technology Council to establish operations at the Pingtung Science Park, where it plans advanced 3D wafer packaging and testing using through-silicon via and wafer-stacking technologies. Nanya has not disclosed the investment size, though industry sources estimate a new fab would require at least NT$100 billion. Together with Winbond's Kaohsiung expansion, additional investment by the three memory makers is expected to approach NT$200 billion. Micron is also bringing its 1-gamma DRAM process, its first to use EUV lithography, to Taiwan.

Demand signals remained firm through the quarter. Micron's fiscal fourth-quarter revenue and profit both beat expectations and the company expects capacity supply to be even tighter in 2027 and 2028 than in 2026, with construction capex over the next few years ranking it among the world's largest construction investors. Shortages are already forcing design compromises downstream: Tesla has halved the LPDDR5 configuration on its AI5 chip to 72GB and cut planned LPDDR6 capacity on AI6 by roughly one third to secure supply for Optimus production. Storage is tightening too, with Toshiba planning to double AI data center HDD capacity within fiscal 2027 on a $380 million expansion.