When Micron expanded their fab in Boise, they didn't fill it up right away. They built it much larger than they needed at the moment because building fabs is incredibly expensive, tooling fabs is incredibly expensive, but building one marginally bigger isn't that much more expensive in terms of added construction and maintenance costs.
I’m well aware, although afaik they struggled to populate most the space for a long time. My uncle is a pipe fitter and Fab7/11 work has been practically seasonal since the 80s.
Not quite, but it’s on and off many times over the years. The complex is more than a mile long so there’s always work in there. There used to be a small Philips fab too nearby, last several years more work has been available in refineries and power plants (natural gas conversion)
