Micron Taiwan has all but halted construction of a new memory chip plant in Taoyuan, putting capacity it had planned for 2028 in doubt. Bloomberg reported on 5 November, citing people familiar with the matter, that the US chipmaker has suspended work on the plant in Taoyuan, in northern Taiwan, because of a protracted labour dispute. Yahoo Finance picked up the story on 8 November, asking what the halt means for the company’s capacity plans at a time when memory is already in short supply.
The plant, known as Fab 11E, was to make DRAM and high-bandwidth memory, the stacked memory that sits next to AI accelerators. Micron had budgeted between $3 billion and $4.5 billion for the project, including advanced chipmaking equipment from ASML, and the facility was scheduled to start production in 2028. Only limited safety and maintenance work remains at the site, according to the reports, and construction will be frozen once that work is finished.
The dispute behind the halt is about profit sharing. The union at the Taoyuan plant, which represents about 2,400 of the site’s roughly 3,000 workers, wants a long-term arrangement that would share 15 percent of Micron’s operating profit with employees. The union said on 7 October that it had won the legal right to strike, with 1,994 of 2,012 votes in favour, and it has been pressing to overturn an October pay deal in favour of the profit-sharing demand.
Micron Taiwan has not confirmed the pause directly. The company said in a statement that Taiwan plays an important role in its global footprint, that its operations there continue as normal, and that it is confident about business continuity for its customers. The statement did not address the Taoyuan plant itself. Bloomberg reported that Micron has informed Taiwanese officials and a supplier about the suspension, though the Taoyuan city government said it has not been notified.
Micron Taiwan and the union dispute
The talks over Micron Taiwan have not stopped. Micron reached a separate deal on 21 October with its much larger Taichung union, which added a quarterly profit-sharing bonus tied to earnings and more shift allowances. The two sides in Taoyuan have held further rounds of talks at the Taoyuan City Government, and Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs said on 6 November that it will help both sides reach an agreement. A third round of negotiations was scheduled for 6 November, with the Ministry of Labor sending representatives to attend.
The stakes are high because of how much Micron Taiwan already produces. Taiwan accounts for roughly 60 percent of Micron’s global DRAM output, and the Taoyuan site is a large part of that. The halted plant was meant to add new capacity for both standard DRAM and high-bandwidth memory, and with DDR5 prices high and memory in short supply, any delay to new output is being watched closely by PC makers and AI hardware buyers alike.
Micron Taiwan and the 2028 timetable
The pause does not affect chips Micron Taiwan already has in production. Micron Taiwan says its existing factories are running normally, so the halt is about future capacity rather than memory already on its way to market. That distinction matters for customers, but it does not remove the risk: if the dispute drags on, the 2028 start date slips, and the extra HBM and DRAM the plant was meant to supply will not arrive on schedule.
Micron has other projects under way, including $250 billion in US manufacturing commitments alongside expansions in Japan and Singapore, so a delay in Taiwan would not leave it with no new capacity at all. But Taiwan is where most of its DRAM is made, and the island’s role in the company’s output means a long freeze in Taoyuan would be felt across its product lines. The company has not said how long the pause will last or what would have to change for work to restart.
For now, the dispute sits with the negotiators. The union wants a permanent share of operating profit, Micron wants the October deal to stand, and the government is trying to bring the two sides together. Until they agree, the $4.5 billion Micron Taiwan plant in Taoyuan stays largely still, and the capacity it had planned for 2028 stays in doubt.