Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU)

Micron is one of only three companies in the world that manufactures DRAM memory chips (along with Samsung and SK Hynix), and it's also a major NAND flash producer. Revenue swings wildly with memory cycles — from $31 billion in fiscal 2022 to $16 billion in fiscal 2023, then rebounding sharply as AI demand surged. The company's HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) chips are critical for AI accelerators like NVIDIA's GPUs. Micron is headquartered in Boise, Idaho — an unusual location for a semiconductor giant.

DRAM (~73% of revenue) and NAND (~25%) are the two product lines. Memory is a commodity business with brutal cyclicality — prices can swing 50%+ in a year based on supply/demand. HBM is the premium product with much better margins, and Micron is investing heavily to capture AI-driven demand. Data center, mobile, PC, and automotive are the key end markets.

Micron was founded in 1978 in Boise by a group of semiconductor engineers. The company survived decades of brutal competition that killed off most Western memory makers — Micron is the last major U.S. DRAM manufacturer. The $9 billion Elpida acquisition in 2013 consolidated the DRAM industry from four major players to three. Micron broke ground on a $100 billion fab complex in Clay, New York in 2023, supported by CHIPS Act funding.