Micron Reportedly Pauses Work on Taiwan Fab Budgeted Up to $4.5 Billion

Micron Technology has largely halted construction of its planned Fab 11E memory plant in Taoyuan, Taiwan, a project budgeted at $3 billion to $4.5 billion, Bloomberg first reported on Nov. 5, citing people familiar with the matter.

According to the Central News Agency (CNA), which compiled the Bloomberg report, Micron executives are worried about growing uncertainty, including the chance that an agreement reached with a local union could be overturned. Micron has told Taiwanese officials and one supplier of the pause, the sources said. A small amount of work continues to keep the site secure and will stop when it is done. The budget, about NT$148.1 billion according to CNA, includes ASML equipment, and the fab was scheduled to start production in 2028.

Micron did not confirm the pause. Its statement, quoted by CNA and by Taiwan's Economic Daily News, said Taiwan plays an important role in its global footprint, that operations are running as usual and that it is confident it can keep serving customers. The statement did not address the Taoyuan plant.

Why the pause matters for memory supply

Bloomberg, as relayed by CNA, said Taiwan accounts for about 60% of Micron's conventional memory chip production, and that a stalled investment could worsen a market already short of memory. Fab 11E was not yet producing anything, so today's output is not affected. What is at stake is future capacity: as Voltgrid reported in October, citing Seoul Economic Daily, Micron's Taiwan sites make DRAM for AI servers and high-bandwidth memory (HBM), and a 2028 start date now has no confirmed footing. No capacity figure for Fab 11E has been published in the reports Voltgrid read, so the size of the lost output cannot be stated.

Where the labor dispute stands

The pause follows weeks of conflict. As Voltgrid reported, about 70% of the Taoyuan union's members rejected Micron's profit-sharing proposal on Oct. 23, a day after a one-day warning strike. The union is asking for a permanent system that allocates 15% of operating profit to employees; Micron has offered a quarterly profit-sharing bonus from fiscal 2027. Bloomberg's sources say Micron signed a deal in October with the larger of its two Taiwan unions, but some employees dislike the terms and the company may have to renegotiate.

The Taoyuan union responded on Nov. 5, according to China Times, that the report is not an official Micron announcement and needs checking. It called the leak possibly a way to pressure the union and said it still wants to negotiate. It argued that Samsung and SK hynix already share profits with staff and still expand capacity, and that Micron has no economic reason to delay a fab.

The Taoyuan labor bureau said it convened talks on Oct. 21 and Oct. 27 on the bonus calculation basis, information transparency and union demands, and that differences remain. A third round is set for Nov. 6, and the city government said it will keep acting as a neutral mediator.

What is not confirmed yet

Micron has not said whether the pause is temporary or whether it is reviewing its Taiwan manufacturing footprint, which Bloomberg's sources raised. The report rests on unnamed sources, and no timetable for restarting work has been published. The Nov. 6 negotiation is the next date to watch: a deal on the profit-sharing formula would be the most direct route to resuming the project.