MICRON TECHNOLOGY INC files 10-Q: quarterly report (10-Q)

This discussion should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes for the year ended August 28, 2025. All period references are to our fiscal periods unless otherwise indicated. Our fiscal year is the 52 - or 53-week period ending on the Thursday closest to August 31. Fiscal 2026 contains 53 weeks and fiscal 2025 contains 52 weeks. The third quarter of 2026 contains 13 weeks and the fourth quarter of 2026 contains 14 weeks. All tabular dollar amounts are in millions, except per share amounts.

Overview

We manufacture our products at wholly-owned facilities and also utilize subcontractors for certain manufacturing processes. Our global network of manufacturing centers of excellence not only allows us to benefit from scale while streamlining processes and operations, but it also brings together some of the world’s brightest talent to work on the most advanced memory technology. Centers of excellence bring expertise together in one location, providing an efficient support structure for end-to-end manufacturing, with quicker cycle times, in partnership with teams, such as R&D, product development, human resources, procurement, and supply chain. For our locations in Singapore and Taiwan, this is also a combination of bringing fabrication and back-end manufacturing together. We continue to make significant investments to develop proprietary product and process technology, which generally increases bit density per wafer and reduces per-bit manufacturing costs of each generation of product. We continue to introduce new generations of products that offer improved performance characteristics, including higher data transfer rates, advanced packaging solutions, lower power consumption, improved read/write reliability, and increased memory density.

We face intense competition in the semiconductor memory and storage markets. To remain competitive, we must continuously develop and implement new products and technologies and decrease manufacturing costs in spite of inflationary pressures, changing technologies, rapid market changes, and regulatory uncertainty. Our success is largely dependent on obtaining returns on our R&D investments, efficient utilization of our manufacturing infrastructure, development and integration of advanced product and process technologies, market acceptance of our diversified portfolio of semiconductor-based memory and storage solutions, and efficient capital spending.

Product Technologies

Our product portfolio of memory and storage solutions, advanced solutions, and storage platforms is based on our high-performance semiconductor memory and storage technologies, including DRAM, NAND, and NOR. We sell our products through our business units into various markets in numerous forms, including components, modules, SSDs, managed NAND, multi-chip packages, and wafers. Many of our system-level solutions combine NAND, a controller, firmware, and in some cases DRAM.

DRAM: DRAM products are dynamic random access memory semiconductor devices with low latency that provide high-speed data retrieval with a variety of performance characteristics. DRAM products lose content when power is turned off (“volatile”) and are most commonly used in the data center, client PC, graphics, industrial, mobile, and automotive markets. DRAM products include High-Bandwidth Memory (“HBM”), which is a 3D stacked DRAM architecture that utilizes through-silicon via (“TSV”) connections for more efficient communication giving it the ability to achieve a higher bandwidth while consuming less power compared to other memory types.

NAND: NAND products are non-volatile, re-writeable semiconductor storage devices that provide high-capacity, low-cost storage with a variety of performance characteristics. NAND is used in SSDs for the data center, client PC, consumer, and automotive markets, and in removable storage markets. Managed NAND is used in smartphones

and other mobile devices, and in the consumer, automotive, and embedded markets. Low-density NAND is ideal for applications like automotive, surveillance, machine-to-machine, automation, printer, and home networking.

NOR: NOR products are non-volatile, re-writable semiconductor memory devices that provide fast read speeds. NOR is most commonly used for reliable code storage (e.g., boot, application, operating system, and execute-in-place code in an embedded system) and for frequently changing small data storage and is ideal for automotive, industrial, and consumer applications.

Industry Conditions Memory and Storage Demand

AI-driven memory and storage growth is outpacing industry supply. In the third quarter of 2026, we continued to benefit from substantial improvements in pricing and margins, reflecting strong demand growth, driven in large part by the continued advancement of AI. The AI-driven growth in the data center has accelerated demand for memory and storage at a rate greater than our ability and the industry’s ability to increase supply. This has led to decisions on supply allocation that may impact certain customers and end markets as the overall market demand for memory and storage exceeds overall industry supply. Robust overall DRAM and NAND demand and constrained supply has led to increased pricing and improved the profitability across our portfolio.

Strategic Customer Agreements

The evolving industry landscape, characterized by strong long-term customer demand for memory solutions and structurally constrained supply growth, has elevated the strategic importance of memory to our customers’ product roadmaps. As customers increasingly seek to secure committed long-term access to advanced memory technology and committed long-term memory supply, we have experienced increased customer engagement in strategic commitments. In the third and fourth quarters of 2026, we entered into, and expect to continue to enter into, strategic customer agreements. These agreements provide customers contracted supply assurance and greater pricing visibility, and provide us higher visibility and improved stability in our business performance.

Strategic customer agreements are structured as take-or-pay agreements, with binding commitments for specific volumes over the multi-year contract terms. Pricing for most agreements is either fixed, or is subject to minimum and maximum pricing. The largest agreements generally have a ceiling price for existing products that approximates the market price in the second calendar quarter of 2026, and a floor price through the term of the agreement. A minority of the agreements do not have any fixed pricing or price bands, as pricing for those agreements is subject to market conditions.