Micron Flips the Switch on US DRAM Fab as 677% Rally Fuels Split Buzz and Multi-Year AI Deals

Micron launches most advanced US DRAM line, quadruples capacity; stock up 677% amid record revenue and HBM4 pre-sales, but insider selling and short interest rise.

The most advanced DRAM production line ever built on American soil went live this week in Manassas, Virginia, giving Micron Technology a concrete onshoring milestone just as its stock continues to defy gravity. The plant, upgraded to the 1-alpha node, quadruples the site’s DDR4 wafer capacity and serves a niche but crucial mix of automotive, defence, aerospace, medical and industrial customers. Micron has poured more than $2 billion into the facility, backed by $275 million from the CHIPS and Science Act, and currently employs over 1,300 full-time staff alongside roughly 1,000 contractors.

Yet the factory floor is only half the story. The market’s eyes are fixed on a stock that has delivered a staggering 677% return over the past twelve months and 140.5% year-to-date. After closing at €647.00 on a recent Friday, shares climbed further to €674.30 — just a whisker away from the 52-week high of €685.40. The relentless rally has revived chatter about a stock split, a topic last relevant for Micron during the dot-com era when it split shares three times between 1994 and 2000. A concrete trigger came from Canada, where CIBC executed a 5-for-1 split on Micron Canadian Depositary Receipts in March 2026 to improve retail accessibility, and the logic has quickly migrated to the main US listing.

The underlying numbers give the rally plenty of ammunition. In the first quarter of fiscal 2026, Micron reported revenue of $13.64 billion — up 57% year-on-year — with a gross margin of 56.8%. More recently, the company posted a record quarterly revenue of $23.9 billion, a 196% surge from the prior year. Even more striking is the quality of the order book: every unit of HBM4 memory for 2026 is already sold under binding multi-year contracts, a stark departure from the short-term agreements that once exposed Micron to brutal DRAM and NAND price swings. Customers are now signing three-to-five-year supply deals, turning Micron from a cyclical commodity player into a quasi-structural AI infrastructure bet.

Not everyone is convinced the party can last. Short interest stands at 3.32% of the float, or roughly 37.3 million shares, and bearish positions have grown 2.6% after a prior jump of 15.9%. Skeptics point to valuation, cyclical memory pricing, and the eventual easing of AI-driven shortages. But bulls counter that Micron trades at just 11 times forward earnings — cheap by AI-adjacent standards. Mizuho recently lifted its price target from $740 to $800 with an “outperform” rating, citing strong DRAM and NAND pricing momentum through 2026 and 2027. BofA Securities turned even more aggressive, boosting its target from $500 to $950 while maintaining a buy recommendation.

Meanwhile, inside the company, insider activity tells a more cautious tale. CEO Sanjay Mehrotra sold roughly 40,000 shares on May 1 at an average price of $536.26, and institutional investor Clearstead Advisors trimmed its stake by 7.3% in the fourth quarter, leaving just under 50,000 shares. Yet those moves did little to dampen the split speculation, which draws energy from the comparison with Nvidia’s own stock-split history during its AI rally.

On the technology roadmap, Micron is already preparing the next leap: HBM4 memory built on 1b DRAM, with an enhanced HBM4E variant slated for 2027. The company’s new fabrication plant in Idaho is scheduled to come online in mid-2027, and a second US facility will follow by late 2028, part of a broader $200 billion investment plan that could eventually create up to 90,000 jobs across Virginia, Idaho and New York. The cycles of memory demand may still ebb and flow, but with a domestic factory now live and a contract backlog that stretches years ahead, Micron has staked a claim that looks more structural than cyclical — and the market is pricing it accordingly.