Micron to give engineers NT$1m, equity

EQUAL SHARE: A row over Micron’s payouts coincides with a global debate about who deserves a cut of the sudden wealth generated by the artificial intelligence boom

Micron Technology Inc is to provide its engineers in Taiwan a cash bonus of NT$1 million (US$31,600) plus equity rewards, as the company’s local unions are demanding an additional payout to reflect their contribution to the chipmaker’s blowout profits.

The Idaho-based chipmaker said in a statement yesterday that its entry-level, Taiwan-based engineers’ average compensation would reach NT$3.4 million for the past fiscal year after the cash and equities awards. All employees in Taiwan would receive equities as part of the annual merit grants, the company added.

Before the announcement, Micron’s unions asked for a one-time cash payout equal to about seven years of an employee’s base salary. That would translate into an average payment of about US$170,000 per worker, based on Bloomberg calculations off data the unions provided. They are also demanding the company allocate a portion of its profit to be shared with global employees as bonuses going forward.

Micron Technology president and chief technology and products officer Scott J. DeBoer speaks during Semicon Taiwan in Taipei on Wednesday last week.

Photo: Ritchie B. Tongo, EPA

The row over Micron’s payouts coincides with a global debate about who deserves a cut of the sudden wealth generated by booming investment in artificial intelligence (AI)-related data centers and other infrastructure.

That has spurred Micron’s South Korean rivals Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc to promise employees a share of the profits in their bonuses. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co has also vowed to set aside 30 percent more in profit-sharing payouts for employees.

However, the size of some of the bonuses has created rifts within companies and communities, with growing calls that users who supply AI with the data it needs also get a cut.

Micron has been handed a major boost from the AI boom. Its cutting-edge high-bandwidth memory is required to make AI accelerators from the likes of Nvidia Corp. The US chipmaker reported a 15-fold gain in net income in the third quarter, while its share price has risen more than 500 percent over the past year.

Micron employs about 15,000 people in Taiwan, which serves as a key manufacturing hub for the chipmaker.

At the same time, it still relies on the US for the bulk of its research and development operations and some production, while it also runs plants in Japan and Singapore.

The US memory maker and the Taoyuan union failed to reach an agreement during a mediation meeting last week, with a second round of mediation scheduled.

Micron is looking to avoid being dragged into a crisis similar to what Samsung Electronics faced in May, when a planned 18-day strike was called off after last-minute negotiations and a successful deal that created a special bonus pool worth 10.5 percent of the chip division’s operating profit, subject to profitability targets.