Editing Micron Technology (section)

=== 1978–1999 ===
Micron was founded in Boise, Idaho, in 1978<ref name="Milestones">{{cite web |url=http://www.micron.com/about/company-info/milestone-timeline-and-awards |title=Micron Company Milestones |publisher=Micron |access-date=2012-06-07 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141202000329/http://www.micron.com/about/company-info/milestone-timeline-and-awards |archive-date=2014-12-02 }}</ref> by Ward Parkinson, Joe Parkinson, Dennis Wilson, and Doug Pitman as a semiconductor design consulting company.<ref>{{cite book |title=A history of the personal computer: the people and the technology |last=Allan |first=Roy A. |year=2001 |publisher=Allan Publishing |isbn=0968910807 |page=16 }}</ref> Startup funding was provided by local Idaho businessmen Tom Nicholson, Allen Noble, Rudolph Nelson, and Ron Yanke. Later it received funding from Idaho billionaire [[J. R. Simplot]], whose fortune was made in the [[potato]] business. In 1981, the company moved from consulting to manufacturing with the completion of its first [[Semiconductor fabrication plant|wafer fabrication]] unit ("Fab 1"), producing 64K DRAM chips.

In 1984, the company had its [[initial public offering]].<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/business/article220062090.html |title=Tales of Micron's 40 years |last=Staats |first=David |date=18 October 2018 |publisher=Idaho Statesman |access-date=24 January 2020}}</ref>

Micron sought to enter the market for [[RISC]] processors in 1991 with a product known as FRISC, targeting embedded control and signal processing applications. Running at 80&nbsp;MHz and described as "a 64-bit processor with fast context-switching time and high floating-point performance", the design supported various features for timely interrupt handling and featured an arithmetic unit capable of handling both integer and floating-point calculations with a claimed throughput of 80&nbsp;MFLOPS for double-precision arithmetic. Micron aimed to provide a "board-level demonstration supercomputer" in configurations with 256&nbsp;MB or 1&nbsp;GB of RAM.<ref name="computerdesign19910501_micron">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_ComputerDe_101739441/page/40/mode/1up | title=80-MHz RISC processor screams through floating-point | magazine=Computer Design | last1=Wilson | first1=Dave | date=1 May 1991 | access-date=26 July 2024 | pages=40,42–43 }}</ref> Having set up a subsidiary and with the product being designed into graphics cards and accelerators, Micron concluded in 1992 that the effort would not deliver the "best bang for the buck", reassigning engineers to other projects and discontinuing the endeavour.<ref name="unigramx19920824_micron">{{ cite news | url=https://archive.org/details/UnigramX1992366-416/page/n232/mode/1up | title=Micron FRISC Chip Effort Flounders | work=Unigram/X | date=24 August 1992 | access-date=26 July 2024 | pages=3 }}</ref>

In 1994 founder Joe Parkinson retired as [[Chief executive officer|CEO]] and [[Steve Appleton]] took over as [[Chairman]], [[President (corporate title)|President]], and CEO.<ref name="Milestones"/>

A 1996 3-way merger among [[Zeos|ZEOS International]], Micron Computer, and Micron Custom Manufacturing Services (MCMS) increased the size and scope of the company;<ref name="Milestones"/> this was followed rapidly with the 1997 acquisition of NetFrame Systems, in a bid to enter the mid-range server industry.<ref>{{Cite news | author= John Moore | work= FCW | url= https://fcw.com/Articles/1997/06/15/Micron-agrees-to-buy-NetFrame.aspx | title= Micron agrees to buy NetFrame | access-date= 2016-12-06 | archive-date= 2016-12-20 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20161220082042/https://fcw.com/Articles/1997/06/15/Micron-agrees-to-buy-NetFrame.aspx | url-status= dead }}." June 15, 1997. Retrieved December 6, 2016.</ref> Between 1998 and 2000, the company was the main sponsor of the [[Pop-Tarts Bowl|MicronPC Bowl]], or MicronPC.com Bowl.