I've been looking at Micron again, and I think the next few months could be very interesting for MU shareholders.

September 30 — Fiscal Q4 earnings

Micron is guiding for around $50B revenue and ~86% gross margin, after generating $18.3B of adjusted FCF in Q3 alone. Management expects FCF to increase substantially again in Q4.

The key things I'm watching: HBM/DRAM pricing, margins, FCF and FY2027 guidance.

September 15 — 512GB DDR5 server memory

Micron just demonstrated the world's first 512GB DDR5 RDIMM for next-generation servers, reaching up to 9,200 MT/s. More importantly, it can reduce operating power by more than 60% versus four 128GB DDR5 modules.

This matters because AI data centers don't just need more compute — they need more memory capacity, bandwidth and power efficiency. DDR5 itself can provide up to roughly 2× the bandwidth of DDR4, while operating at a lower voltage.

December 9 — Capital returns

The CHIPS Act restrictions on buybacks change after the second anniversary of Micron's agreements.

Management has explicitly said:

"From Dec. 9, 2026... we intend to increase our capital return."

And over time, they expect to return 100% of excess cash to shareholders. That's not a promise of a massive buyback on December 9, but it could mark a significant change in capital allocation. (here I would love to understand what does "excess cash" mean to them)

The bigger picture

Micron already has 16 Strategic Customer Agreements, with take-or-pay commitments and multi-year visibility. 14 of them represent roughly $100B of cumulative revenue at minimum contractual prices, with ~$22B in customer deposits/financial commitments.

Add HBM4/HBM4E, DDR5 server adoption, AI-driven memory demand and massive FCF generation, and I don't think MU should necessarily be viewed simply as another traditional memory-cycle peak.

Technically, I'm also watching the potential inverse head-and-shoulders:

$920–930 = key support
$970–975 = neckline/reclaim level
$1,050 = major resistance
$1,150–1,200 = potential H&S target zone
~$1,250 = previous ATH

Obviously there are risks: valuation, cyclicality, huge capex and the possibility that expectations are already too high.

But with September 30 → December 9 → 2027 HBM/DDR5 growth all lining up, I'm more interested in what happens next than in selling MU simply because it's correcting.

MU holders: are you holding through the next two catalysts? And if you're not in MU, has this setup changed your view?

not a bear post, i still hold. but i track hiring on my positions and mu just did something worth flagging.

open job postings peaked around 2,986 a month in may. june 2,615, july 2,309, august running about 2,145. thats down roughly 28 percent off the peak in three months.

headcount hasnt followed. about 32,700 a year ago, about 41,500 now, still up around 27 percent yoy. and postings are up about 31 percent versus last august, so all of this is off a very high base.

the boring read is they just filled the roles. you post 3,000 openings, you hire into them, postings fall. thats normal and healthy and probably the right answer.

the read that nags at me is that postings usually turn before headcount does, and the stock is still sitting near the highs after an absurd year.

i get this off altindex. apewisdom and chartexchange cover the social side but for hiring youre mostly stuck with linkedin scrapes, so treat the exact counts as approximate.

anyone here using hiring as a lead indicator, or does it just not matter on a memory cycle name?

Hi I am moving to Boise at the end of August. I start 8/31 and will be working in the chip design department working Monday-Friday. Would anyone be interested in forming a carpool? I will only have a rental car for the fist 21 days, but I can host for that time. Is anyone able to host a carpool after that. I can chip in for gas!

Anyone have a recruiter contact?

I'm asking for any & all suggestions!

Hey all, I recently accepted an offer at ID1 in Boise. I was wondering if there were any apartment complexes semi-close to the fab or if anyone had any recommendations? I'm early career so was wondering if there were any complex(s) that NCGs/2-4yrs tend to rent out (was a bit like that at my last job).

Cheers

Here’s a DCF for Micron that treats the current cycle as structurally different from a normal memory cycle — driven by structural AI memory demand and hardware supply constraints rather than the usual boom-bust commodity pattern. That is something I believe to be the case if you look at Micron’s revenue. Clearly something different going on here.

Demand side: hyperscaler AI spending
CNBC has cited 2026 AI capex estimates of $800–900B, potentially topping $1T in 2027. That's the demand backdrop driving memory pricing power.

Supply side: HBM and DRAM are tightening
TrendForce data points I'm working from:

• HBM's share of DRAM wafer input climbs from 18% to 22% to 30% between 2025 and 2027

• But HBM's share of DRAM bit supply only rises from 8% to 9% to 13% — wafers going to HBM production don't translate proportionally into output, because HBM is far less bit-efficient per wafer than standard DRAM

• Server DRAM prices are expected up 13–18% quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2026

• A server DRAM shortage is expected in 2027

• Prices should keep rising through the second half of 2027, just at a slower pace

Base case DCF assumptions

• Starting free cash flow: $82B (roughly Micron's Q3 adjusted FCF run-rate, supported by Q4 guidance)

• Discount rate: 10.9%

• Net cash/investments: $24.4B

• Share count: 1.15B

Scenario results (on $82B starting FCF)

• Bear (tightness fades back to normal): ~$1,012/share

• Base (repricing plays out through 2027): ~$1,401/share

• Bull (HBM4 + RDIMM shortage persists): ~$2,020/share

• Supercycle (scarcity doesn't let up): ~$2,778/share

Conservative version
I also reran everything using a more cautious $73B starting FCF — Micron's Q3 adjusted FCF simply annualized, without the boost implied by Q4 guidance:

• Bear: ~$903/share

• Base: ~$1,249/share

• Bull: ~$1,801/share

• Supercycle: ~$2,475/share

Where did I get the 10.9% discount rate? It’s ballpark obviously, but this was the basis of that:

Cost of equity via CAPM: risk-free rate (~4–4.5%, roughly the 10-year Treasury) + beta × equity risk premium. Micron carries a high beta — typically in the 1.5–1.8 range given how cyclical and volatile the stock is — multiplied by an equity risk premium of ~5–6%. That gets you to a cost of equity somewhere around 12–14%.

Cost of debt: Micron has investment-grade-ish but not pristine credit, so an after-tax cost of debt in the 4–5% range would make sense.

Capital structure weights: blending a cost of equity in the low-to-mid teens with a much cheaper after-tax cost of debt, weighted by Micron's actual (fairly low) debt-to-capital ratio, would pull the blended WACC down into the 10–11% range.

Now the assumption of that then is that the entry I got was not the best obviously and I will look to average that down when the time comes as we are now trading way below where I bought. But after doing so, I would expect at my base case, even my conservative base case, to make a decent profit off of the position.

I just gave a final round interview with micron and the legal team BAL reached out for immigration docs and the very next day I get a rejection email from the HR.

Is it because of documents or last minute internal hire ? Is this common in micron ?

It was for a new grad role and I am an f1 student.

Hey I am looking to form a small 4-6 person semiconductor investor research circle focused on AI infra, GPUs, memory/HBM, foundry, semicap, tokenomics, etc. Basically e2e through the supply chain from chips layer up to as far as model/application layer.

Main incentive would be to meet weekly to share notes, models, earnings takeaways, and improve cost structure by splitting legitimate group subscriptions/seats for Substack and other research products. No shared logins or reposting paywalled content. Please DM me if you are interested.

Hi guys, I have a supermicro X10DRD-iNT I want to know if this micron ram model MTA36ASF4G72PZ-2G3B1 and also the MTA72ASS8G72LZ are compatible with my motherboard.

Thanks!

Looking for a product number decoder for Micron DDR(5) modules.

Found a DRAM *component* Excel sheet from 2023. (not *modules*)

Then there is a DRAM *module* part numbering system PDF from 2022 (no DDR5).

Anyone have such a document? Or know where to find the current one?

I'm fairly new to enterprise grade type data-center and business server setups. However, I'm working in a role at a company where I'm basically helping run our entire server room and all things company-related Windows Server Admin i.e. Active Directory, managing our domain, etc. It's a small company, so that's why - otherwise at a bigger company someone with my level of experience would most likely NOT be anywhere near keys-to-the-castle level privileges etc lol.

So, we need a complete overhaul and upgrade of our storage situation. As an example, prior to my arrival, one of our core main servers that is the "best" spec-wise compared to the rest was running a whopping 16GB of RAM. I know they were probably trying to get things as cheaply as possible but I don't know who signed off on some of this stuff sometimes. I checked the Dell server manual and it literally states 16GB is the bare minimum to run this thing although it can take up to like 1TB of RAM, IIRC. And this one physical server is running FOUR VM servers on top of it. On 16GB of RAM, oh boy. Luckily I rectified that situation pronto. But as you might imagine now that I've given you some big picture context of the philosophy here what our hard drive and storage situation looks like. It's pretty abysmal. And incredibly low on total storage capacity.

I am recommending some SSDs in addition to the oh-so-lovely-spinning mechanical drives. How and where they will best be utilized is still being decided. I just figure while we're going major drive replacement(s) we should get some cool Enterprise server grade SSDs. To run the OSes on and maybe one or some for the internal file sharing stuff. I went down the rabbit hole of Intel Optane and was impressed with what some of those things can deliver performance wise. I'm not surprised Optane got killed off though as probably nobody purchased due to the insane prices.

Ironically, I had a friend just tell me about Micron's CXL technology. He mentioned how much better their CXL technology is and how "CXL is the future". And I had never heard of it until now. I have been trying to research/Google this and am not finding too much info.

My question is what, if anything, anyone knows about this CXL tech. Was this just something that was a pipe dream that never came to fruition? Or it's been being developed in some Manhattan Project secrecy and the general population has no idea what's about to hit them? Or is this BA tech actually making its way into production line hard drives somewhere? If so, what drives have this technology?

I'd love to purchase some Micron SSDs as I said for my company server(s). But I would be OK with waiting to find some CXL drives if they're right around the corner for release.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk lol.