Micron pledges $1M to build university research center in Utah

By Colleen Taylor, Contributing Editor and Ann Steffora Mutschler, Senior Editor -- Electronic News, 11/1/2007

Memory chip maker Micron Technology Inc. announced today that its non-profit arm, the Micron Technology Foundation, has pledged to donate $1 million over the next four years to create the Micron Research Center at the Utah State University (USU) College of Engineering.

The center will host research and instruction in the area of emerging hardware and software technologies, particularly in reconfigurable hardware technologies. The center will also train USU undergraduate and graduate students in engineering and science. According to Micron, the center's research will concentrate on solutions addressing reliability, communication, power and performance in memory device design and manufacturing.

Micron said the research center will involve 10 undergraduates, six masters and two doctoral students each year. As part of the donation for the center, undergraduate and graduate students will have an opportunity to apply for research scholarships and funding.

The research center will be housed in the electrical and computer engineering department when it is completed in the fall of next year.

"Micron has been a great partner in helping the college of engineering teach and train students with the knowledge and skills they will need to create tomorrow's technologies and services," Scott Hinton, the dean of the USU College of Engineering, said in a statement.

Micron's announcement marks just the latest in a deluge of recent investments major tech companies have made in recent weeks in the higher education realm.  This week, Intel Corp. and Texas Instruments Inc. each announced separate initiatives to fund education programs in Africa and India, respectively.  And last month, IBM Corp. and Google Inc. jointly announced plans to start an initiative to promote new software development methods at universities, with pilot programs being launched at the University of Washington, Carnegie-Mellon University, Stanford University, MIT, and others.

Micron itself has made at least two other large investments in universities this year. In March, Micron helped launch a new lab at the University of Washington to research new combinations of materials for use in semiconductor manufacturing, and provided more than $400,000 in equipment and $500,000 in cash.

And in January, the company's technology foundation gifted Boise State University with $12.5 million to help fund a new building for the College of Business and Economics.