Micron starts 1α DRAM production at Virginia fab in $2 billion expansion
US memory manufacturer Micron has begun 1-alpha DRAM manufacturing at its Manassas, Virginia facility — the most advanced memory technology ever produced in the United States, according to the company. The more than USD 2 billion investment will quadruple Micron's DDR4 wafer supply at the site.
Micron is the only US manufacturer of memory, and the Virginia expansion is aimed squarely at domestic industrial customers. The 1α node is designed for long-lifecycle memory applications — DDR4 and LP4 products — serving the automotive, defence and aerospace, industrial, networking and medical device sectors. Qualified production from the Manassas fab is expected by the end of 2026, according to a press release from the company.
The expansion supports more than 3,100 direct manufacturing and community jobs and is backed by federal, state and local incentives.
The Manassas milestone is part of Micron's broader USD 200 billion US investment plan, which also includes memory manufacturing complexes under development in Boise, Idaho — where initial wafer output is expected in mid-2027 — and Clay, New York, where ground was broken in January 2026. Combined, those projects are expected to create an estimated 90,000 jobs.
"We are proud to bring advanced 1α DRAM manufacturing to American soil, strengthening domestic supply for U.S. customers and the global markets we serve," said Sanjay Mehrotra, President and CEO of Micron Technology.
The Virginia expansion addresses a supply dynamic that has been building across the memory industry. As Nikolaos Florous of Memphis Electronic outlined at Evertiq Expo Zürich in April, memory manufacturers have been reallocating mature-node capacity toward HBM and leading-edge DRAM to serve AI infrastructure demand — reducing supply availability for the DDR4-dependent industries, like automotive and defence, that Micron's Manassas fab serves. The Idaho and New York projects, by contrast, target the advanced nodes powering AI systems.
