Editing by Li Panpan

Micron Technology is disbanding its DRAM design team within its Shanghai R&D Center, JW Insights has learned on January 25.

Sources also said that Micron would help some 40 core members of the to be disbanded team immigrate to the United States with their families.  

The Micron Shanghai R&D Center is said to have over 100 employees and the sales, testing, and other functions will remain unchanged. There are neither changes with Micron's factory in Xi’an for DRAM manufacturing and testing.

Micron's DRAM design team had previously lost quite a few employees to Chinese IC design companies and storage manufacturers in the last couple of years.

An industry observer commented that Micron's disbanding of its DRAM design team is likely to prevent technological leakage. Although the number of Chinese DRAM companies is relatively small, several new ones may emerge in the next few years. DRAM manufacturers are looking for talent. Micron's move may want to keep product design and R&D outside the Chinese mainland.

Micron Technology has the world’s largest DRAM market share of 41.5%, according to market research firm Counterpoint. Samsung is the second of 29.3%, SK Hynix the third of 23.4%.

Micron has a long history of attaching importance to intellectual property protection. It took UMC to court for leaking trade secrets. Still, they ended up reaching a global agreement and withdrawing their lawsuits against each other last November, with UMC paying Micron a one-time settlement of an undisclosed amount. Both parties said in their statements that they look forward to future business cooperation. At the end of the lawsuit, Micron emphasized that intellectual property protection is an essential cornerstone for its competitiveness.