A 6.5 magnitude earthquake hit Taiwan on Sunday, impacting production at one of Micron’s semiconductor factories that produce DRAM chips. The quake was centered about 35 miles east of Tapei in a city called Yilan. Fortunately, no deaths were reported, but a woman was injured by falling rocks at the Taroko National Park in Hualien County, south of Yilan.
Micron Technology confirmed that all team members in Taiwan are safe as a result of the 6.5 magnitude earthquake that struck north eastern Taiwan on October 24. The earthquake caused impact to production at our facilities in Taoyuan. Micron is evaluating the impact and determining the appropriate steps to return to full production.
Micron has two factories located on the island, one in Taoyuan and another in Taichung. They use state-of-the-art technology for producing DRAM and accounted for nearly 9 percent of the global supply last year. Evercore analyst C.J. Muse wrote the following in a note to investors.
Any meaningful production hit would most certainly lead to a much more tight supply environment and could pull in a DRAM pricing inflection sooner than current consensus expectations [of the first half of next year]
The full effects of the quake’s impact on DRAM production are unknown, but supply chains are still tight and disrupted by many factors.
Source: Bloomberg (via Tom’s Hardware), Associated Press