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Micron's microchip megafab
Good morning, formidable fabricators. This is your Stock Market Rundown for October 25th, 2023. Thank you once again for tuning in. Let’s get into it:
TODAY’S TOP STORY: CIRCUITRY AND THE CITY 🏭
The upstate New York city of Syracuse is a more likely destination for shuttered Rust Belt manufacturing than for high-tech innovation. But that’s changing, thanks to the semiconductor industry coming to town.
Memory chip manufacturer Micron has poured the first cement for what will eventually be a gigantic, cutting-edge manufacturing facility housing four chip fabs. Each fab will be the size of ten football fields—the employees are going to need golf carts to get around.
This megafab will churn out DRAM chips, which serve as the primary memory in computers, temporarily storing data and instructions. Here’s an analogy: picture some cutie telling you their phone number at a noisy bar, and you then have to remember it for the ten seconds required to get out your phone and type it in… you’re using your mental DRAM.
Today, the US only produces 2% of global DRAM. That’s why the bill for Micron’s mega-facility is being footed partly by subsidies from the CHIPS Act. This federal legislation is funneling billions into US-based semiconductor manufacturing, and making chip CEOs’ dreams come true.
So why Syracuse? Well, it’s right on Lake Ontario, which conveniently provides the 10 million gallons a day of water the plant needs. It’s got engineering talent from its manufacturing history. And apparently, it even has some decent barbecue. Upstate New York, who knew?
SO WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?
Pass the Prozac: corporate head honchos are in a morose mood. Nearly three-quarters of them expect a recession over the next 12 to 18 months.
Minecraft just became the bestselling video game of all time, surpassing 300 million copies sold. Not bad for a game whose graphic design looks like a PC-based first-person shooter from 1995 where the most violent thing you do is use dynamite to dig a hole in the ground.
Snap’s stock was up on a leaked memo from the CEO saying ad revenue is expected to grow 20% next year. The Discover tab may be a cesspool of clickbait, but it’s boosting the business.
A survey found that more than half of GenZers say inflation is their biggest barrier to saving for retirement. When I was in my 20s my biggest barrier to saving for retirement was blowing my paycheck on ill-advised running shoe splurges and getting crunk at Margarita Thursdays.
That’s it for today, my friends; see you bright and early tomorrow morning. Yours in capitalism, The Axe