A series of moves announced by Micron Electronics Inc. apparently will have no bearing on the operations at Micron Technology Inc.'s Lehi facility.
Micron Technology, based in Nampa, Idaho, owns controlling interest in Micron Electronics, which offers computer products and services, Internet offerings, Web hosting and business-to-business e-commerce applications.
Micron Electronics has announced it will sell its nonhosting businesses, Micronpc.com and SpecTek, and merge with Web-hosting company Interland Inc., with the company to be named Interland and headquartered in Atlanta. The actions result in the company leaving the personal computer manufacturing business. Micron Technology will acquire SpecTek, involved in computer chip reconditioning.
"There will be no impact on Lehi from the Micron Electronics announcement," said Kipp Bedard, Micron Technology's vice president of corporate affairs. "It's a separate company and in the PC business, and it doesn't affect the semiconductor side of the business."
Micron Technology began building the Lehi plant in anticipation of manufacturing silicon wafers used in computer memory chips, but a downturn in the markets has kept that work from starting. The company has about 860 workers in Lehi doing testing of chips that overflows from the company's Idaho operations, but plans to produce prototype 300mm wafers also have been put on hold. The wafers would be about four inches in diameter larger than the current 8-inch standard.
Micron Technology is hiring four to six operators per week at the plant. "And we're planning to hire another 40 technicians and 20 engineers over the next 12 months or so," Bedard said.
The future of the plant, as officials have previously said, depends on the computer chip market.
"It's still our premier site for the 300mm pilot production line, but the timing is based on market conditions," Bedard said. "In the meantime, we're still moving ahead with landscaping and the central utilities plant. That's still ongoing, but the timing of first production is still based on market conditions, which are extremely difficult to predict right now."
Under a previous agreement with Micron Electronics, Micron Technology will purchase the assets of SpecTek, with the transfer effective April 6, and the company also will acquire some real estate and intellectual property. The sale nets Micron Electronics about $42 million.
The merger with Interland is an all-stock deal giving Interland shareholders approximately a 30 percent interest in the new company. Based on the closing price of Micron Electronics stock last Thursday, the deal is valued at about $130 million.
The merger must still be approved by shareholders in both companies and federal regulators, but it is expected to close this summer.
E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com