|
Trade Wars
Micron Ups US Manufacturing, Supply Chain Pledge To $253B
Micron Technology is increasing its U.S. commitment to spend more than $250 billion through 2035, fueled by soaring demand for its dynamic random-access memory products, according to a press release Thursday. Additionally, the company is spending up to $3 billion to fortify the domestic semiconductor supply chain. That investment isn’t part of Micron’s increased pledge. The announcement comes as Micron completed worksite less than six months ahead of schedule, shifting to vertical construction of its $100 billion semiconductor fabrication campus in Clay, New York.
The investment includes $500 million to expand manufacturing and research and development capabilities at GlobalWafer’s 300mm raw silicon wafer plant in Sherman, Texas. The two companies also inked a 10-year supply agreement and plan on collaborating to develop wafer technologies and processes to support future semiconductor manufacturing requirements, according to the press release.
Read more at Manufacturing Dive
Deere Settles Lawsuit By US FTC, States Over Equipment Repair Restrictions
Deere (DE.N), opens new tab agreed on Wednesday to settle a lawsuit by the Federal Trade Commission and five U.S. states accusing the farm equipment maker of illegally requiring farmers to use its network of authorized dealers for repairs, rather than use independent service providers or do the work themselves. The Moline, Illinois-based company did not admit or deny wrongdoing in settling with the FTC, Illinois, Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Its settlement requires approval by U.S. District Judge Iain Johnston in Rockford, Illinois. Deere agreed in April to pay $99 million to settle related private class-action litigation.
The settlement requires Deere to give farmers and independent providers access to the same equipment diagnostic and other repair resources available to authorized dealers for 10 years, and access to new repair resources once more than 50% of authorized dealers have access. Deere will also instruct authorized dealers to provide those resources to farmers and independent providers who want them. It will pay $1 million to cover the states' legal fees and costs.
Read more at Reuters
Ford, GM Sign Memory Supply Agreements With Micron
Ford Motor Co. and General Motors each signed supplier agreements with Micron Technology this month to support next-generation vehicle production.For GM, Micron will provide low-power double-data-rate memory, NOR and universal flash storage NAND products, per a July 1 press release. Additionally, the automaker will collaborate with Micron on future memory and storage requirements. Micron will supply Ford with memory and storage technology, although it did not detail specific products in a press release announcing the agreement. The company declined to share more details when reached by Supply Chain Dive.
Numerous manufacturers are contending with a memory sourcing crunch as artificial intelligence applications and the data centers that support them gobble up supply. This is particularly true for automakers leaning into software-defined vehicles. Through these latest memory sourcing deals, Ford and GM are avoiding such risk by securing long-term supply reliability, according to Sanjay Mehrotra, president and CEO at Micron.
Read more at Supply Chain Dive
EV Transition Challenges Auto Supply Chain Resilience, Moody’s Says
Electric vehicles may have a lot less complexity and moving parts compared to internal combustion engine powered vehicles, but the reverse is true when it comes to an automaker’s supply chain. While the ICE vehicle manufacturer has close control over much of its supply chain, the EV automaker is not so lucky, Vitaliano Tobruk, Moody’s supply chain industry practice lead, said in an online interview with WardsAuto.
A June 1 Moody’s analysis said the auto industry is facing several major structural pressures, making supplier risk more interconnected and harder to assess through traditional, point-in-time approaches. “In the past companies were also able to plan with stability, demand was predictable, and so this means that supply chain didn’t change direction too often,” said Tobruk. Legacy automakers have the added complexity of having to run different supply chains, for ICE, hybrid and EV powertrains. “So, this means that a supplier has also to support three different supply chains and, sometimes, investments are also split among those chains,” said Tobruk.
Read more at Manufacturing Dive
Honeywell Aero To Develop More Defense Products For Europe Outside US Export Controls
U.S. supplier Honeywell Aerospace is looking to add more products designed without restricted U.S. technologies as mounting European defense spending drives demand for parts free from possible export roadblocks. NATO leaders have unveiled arms deals worth tens of billions of dollars at a gathering in Turkey this week, as they face U.S. demands to spend more to defend Europe and due to pressure from Russia's war in Ukraine. Some European defense companies and North American suppliers are also expected to discuss demand for parts not governed by U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) at the world's largest air show later this month.
There is increasing demand among European countries for ITAR-free systems due to concerns over Washington potentially blocking the re-export of sensitive U.S. components embedded in foreign weapons, according to defense officials and industry executives. Honeywell Aerospace is set to announce a new ITAR-free product for the international defense sector at the Farnborough Airshow in Britain later this month, a source told Reuters. Honeywell Aerospace sees international exposure growing for its defense business, which accounts for about 40% of company revenue and includes navigation systems and actuators for missiles. Last year, international sales accounted for about 30% of the company's defense business, up from around 18% in 2020, Honeywell Aerospace said.
Read more at Reuters
TSMC Posts Record Revenue In Second Quarter On AI Demand
TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker, reported on Monday second-quarter revenue that rose 36% from a year earlier to a record high on surging interest in artificial intelligence applications. Revenue in the April-June period of this year came in at T$1.27 trillion ($39.62 billion), according to Reuters calculations, slightly above a T$1.264 trillion LSEG SmartEstimate drawn from 20 analysts.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, is a major supplier to companies including Nvidia and Apple. On its last earnings call in April, the company predicted second-quarter revenue of between $39 billion and $40.2 billion. The company gives its forecast only in U.S. dollars and not Taiwan dollars. For June alone, TSMC reported that revenue rose 67.9% year-on-year to T$442.68 billion, which was up 6.2% compared with the previous month. The data was originally due last Friday, but it was delayed due to the impending arrival of Typhoon Bavi, which shut financial markets in Taipei that day.
Read more at Reuters
Mitsubishi Motors to Build And Deploy Humanoid Robots
Mitsubishi Motors has signed a memorandum of understanding with Highlanders, a University of Tokyo robotics startup, to jointly develop humanoid robots for its manufacturing operations and explore mass production at the Kyoto Plant from early 2027. The agreement is the first between an automaker and a humanoid robotics developer to encompass mass production.
Japan’s manufacturing sector faces growing pressure from labour shortages and increasingly complex production demands, making flexible automated systems a rising priority for the industry. The partnership addresses both: Mitsubishi Motors will deploy Highlanders robots at its own facilities to build operational expertise, while Highlanders gains a credible route to scaled production through Mitsubishi Motors’ established capabilities in mass-production engineering, quality assurance, and mechatronics control. Currently unused buildings at the Kyoto Plant are being assessed for the production programme. Mitsubishi Motors has already invested in Highlanders and expects to invest further.
Read more at Automotive World
Airbus Sees New Routes and Aging Fleets Driving Demand
Airbus identified a combination of airlines’ desire to expand their networks with longer, thinner routes connecting smaller cities and a growing need to replace aging aircraft as key factors behind rising demand in its latest Global Market Forecast (GMF) released on July 8. Between 2026 and 2045, the European airframer is now predicting 42,060 passenger airliner deliveries in response to a projected twofold increase in revenue passenger kilometers to 21.3 trillion. For Airbus, these GMF data points were the cue for a sales pitch on the route-launching potential for its newest narrowbody offering, the A220, which it said has made more than 400 new thin routes viable in North America, Europe, and Africa.
Part of this demand curve comes from people living and working outside their home country to make trips home to visit friends and relatives. This trend, Da Costa explained, is partly responsible for the expansion of direct air services between smaller cities, allowing passengers to avoid airline hubs. In 2025, according to Airbus, 55% of all city pairs were new routes that had not existed 20 years earlier. Da Costa pointed to an additional 532 airports with scheduled airline services that were not on the global route network in 2005, including Sucre in Brazil, Daocheng in China, and the Vietnamese resort destination of Thanh Hoa.
Read more at Aire Industry News
Walmart Inks Nuclear Energy Deal To Power Illinois Warehouse
Walmart entered a long-term power purchase agreement with Constellation Energy last month that will provide the retailer with nuclear energy, environmental attributes and energy capacity to support its operations in Illinois, according to a June 23 press release. The PPA will give Walmart up to 176 megawatts of nuclear-generated electricity over two 15-year periods beginning in 2029 and 2030, according to the release issued by Constellation. Constellation — the nation’s largest producer of clean, zero-emissions energy — said the deal will provide “enough new power to the grid” for the perishable distribution center Walmart is developing in the state.
The deal is Walmart’s first nuclear PPA, and Constellation said in the release that its “among the first of its kind between a large retailer and a nuclear energy facility in the United States.” While nuclear PPAs have increased in recent years, the shift has largely been led by tech companies working to meet the energy demands of artificial intelligence. The retail giant will get power from Constellation’s Dresden Clean Energy Center in Illinois, which Constellation relicensed in December for operation at its generators through 2049 and 2051, according to the release. The deal includes 30 MW of expanded generation capacity for the power plant.
Read more at Supply Chain Dive
|
