Micron Challenges a Report

Our 1,400 employees at Micron were disappointed to see, in an otherwise outstanding article about Texas Instruments (“Dual Identity Puts Chip Maker in Middle of U.S.-Japan Trade Fight,” April 26) that you referred to Micron as “small.”

We have two wafer fabrication facilities, the only internal assembly operation totally automated and capable of assembling our entire output and complete test facilities, all in the United States. Daniel L. Klesken, the respected semiconductor analyst at Montgomery Securities whom you quoted, has recently reported that Micron is the largest producer of 256K D-RAMs (dynamic random-access memory chips) made exclusively in the United States. Our 256K and 64K output exceeds 6 million units per month. How big do we have to get before you call us something more than small?

The only thing small about Micron from our employees’ standpoint are our die sizes, which have enabled us to survive the storm of foreign dumping.

Most disappointing was your statement that Micron has “yet to achieve the same high quality standards as TI, industry experts say,” attributed to an industry source who is not named. These ghosts who whisper bad things about our quality do damage to our reputation and disservice to our exclusively American production.

Whereas most manufacturers have decreased their assured failure rates from 200 parts per million to 50 parts per million, Micron is now experiencing fewer than 10 failures per million parts shipped. According to every standard of which we are aware, Micron leads the charge in every quality category.

In the future, before you make derogatory remarks about our company, I would appreciate it if you would call and give us a chance to refute them.

JOSEPH L. PARKINSON

Chairman, Micron Technology