>>live from San Francisco. It's the Q covering Micron Insight 2019 to You by Micron. >>Welcome back to San Francisco, everybody. We're here. Appear 27 covering the micron inside. 2019. I'm David Lot day with my co host, David Flores. Sanjay Moreau chose here. He's the president and CEO of Micron. Sanjay, great to see you again. Good to >>see you, too. >>I love the show because you guys are a highly technical company. You get you get down in the weeds and talk about nano meters and cycles and things like that. But we're here talking about technology, how it's changing people's lives. I mean, you see, that is your mission. So tell us a year on what's new from this >>event. You new at this event is so many new products that we announced today. You know, you see, Micron, I'd like to say that my clone 41 year old, but it has a new heart beat and you see that new heartbeat coming through New innovations, new products, you know, several new solid state drive solutions. Breakthrough speeds portable. SSD renounced our tent, a security solution as well as demonstrated test platform a platform for deep learning algorithms to be applied, enabling influence at EJ. So you see my front continuing to focus on driving high value solutions, engaging deeper with the ecosystem, engaging with our customers to understand what are the main points off the future and bringing innovative technology solutions. And, of course, during the course of last year in a while it was a year where memory pricing went down substantially because of some excess supply forces demand. But my crone, actually in that year produced the second best year in the history of the company. And during the year, he also had the second best year for free class cash flow for the company, >>about $13 billion in nearly 12 months. I want to get into some of that. But before I do our industry and you know this well has marched to the cadence of Moore's law for decades and decades of that has been the innovation engine. It no longer is. You talked about that on your panel today, the innovation engine is now data applying machine intelligence and a I and machine learning to that data scaling with cloud. Now the edge comes into a whole new innovation cocktail. I wonder if you could comment on that in terms of what it means for your business. >>So, yes, in terms of innovation, challenges you to Morse law scaling, but also the workloads that are there today, driving the eye of the future required, nor the solutions of yesterday. They require new, innovative architectures. I like to call them be spoke processors like you have a new custom suit for that fits a particular individual. Now baseball processors that actually meet needs off the specific workloads. But what is important is that as these new innovations, new architectures proliferate through the ecosystem. Memory and storage is key because the trends off the eye, after all, are about drawing deeper insight and creating greater value from all the data that billions of devices the coyote devices are creating around the world. So tremendous support unity for memory and storage. We are focused on bringing solutions with Denham with flash that meet the needs of our customers in terms of performance be announced today. You know the highest clocking speed for our ballistics. Dylan. You know, a delight to the gamers, but we also announce new SS D's for enterprise application, we announce a three d cross point x 100 solid state drive with the fastest in the industry kind of performance. So these are the kind of things were focused on. Yes, technology is getting more complex in and, you know, event from 64 layers to 96 layers. And next year, going 228 layers on Dedham side were the first ones to introduce the ones e technology Norden the industry and actually forced ones to start shipping already in production in the industry. This one z dina nor has the smallest feature size. So these are new, exciting things that are happening at my crime. >>I mean, Sanjay's right. They see all these alternative processes going on. You see, cos tech companies building their own custom silicon, right? I mean, >>so yes, way we're seeing these hybrid solutions being put together on dhe, seeing that the rise of new players completely like arm, for example, now taking a more and more important part in that. So But I'd like to just ask one question on three D cross point that that was an interesting one. How you gonna get volume in that is there going to be through working with some of these other vendors? Because Intel have just combined it with The process is essentially, Are you looking at new ways that you can use that at the lower end to get volume up? >>Where's that fit in your overall strategy? >>Certainly, as we said in the memory hierarchy, TV Cross Point fits in very nicely between NAND on one end and Di Dam on the other end city cost point as a persistent memory gives the benefit that it has capacities, ship densities that can be higher than Denham. Yet it has performance that is close to Denham and much faster than then. And it has the persistence, the non volatility that man has as well. So you can imagine with those kind of attributes, it will have exciting new opportunities in the future. But these new technologies do take several years before they become mainstream technologies. This is still early innings for three D plus point technology. Be engaged with the ecosystem partners with the customers in terms of understanding how this will fit in best in terms of their data center applications. This is what we have started working on This is what we announced the product. And we'll, of course, continue to evolve. The road map are pretty cross point technology. I just also want to touch upon what you said that Yes, you do see that compute now is not being just done like yesterday with CP use. Yes, you do have that idea of solutions. Si pues gp used tp use a six and f bjs. And here's some of the social media giants and those tech giants that are driving innovation in various industry segments, including transportation. They have their own silicon, you know, to address their deep learning requirements, and that creates new. Unfortunately, for us, this is what we call putting silicon back into Silicon Valley. Silicon is driving the innovations today that are coming out of Silicon Valley, regardless off world and market segment and Member Lee and storage is very much at the heart is at the center of yours. >>So you know I want to retire about vertical integration and one of my business early business heroes was Al Shugart. When I was a young puppet, i d. C. And he educated me on the importance of vertical integration and his market, which of course, was spinning destroys heads, media, etcetera. That was a game changer for that that you know, emerging company at the time. See gate. How is vertical? What your philosophy and vertical integration And how does it affect your business and your customers? >>So vertical indication enables us to bring value to our customers, bring greater value to our customers. We have a massive scale off manufacturing that is built on a very comprehensive and actually the world's most unique technology platform. Now taking this vertical integration of the technology platform manufacturing scales off, you know, more than six million acres a year and extending it to controller and form their expertise deep packaging expertise to bring high bandwidth Delia memory solutions for data center applications as well. A solid state drives and multi chip manage nan solutions for smartphone and automotive applications. These are just examples off how we're leveraging our vertical integration, extending it into controllers and firmware and packaging and assembly capability to really bring a diverse and expanded product for a full year to the market, do air just the markets needs from cloud to the edge. And now we're extending our work till indication capabilities even deeper from we have gone from silicon two solutions and now going from also silicon. Two solutions to system and software working with customers to understand water, the hardware and software intricacies involved that can help bring out even more power from the memory as they look at, you know, driving their deep learning algorithms for training as well as for influence. I think this is the vertical integration on build on the most unique platform of technologies. Nobody else in the world has Denham, NAND and CD cross point now building vertical indication on this gives us tremendous defense created opportunity to bring value to our cast. >>A troll more value or being able leveraged. I wanna ask you about your business. You mentioned a record number two free cash flow year for you guys. Two summers ago, I listened to you at the analyst, the Wall Street analyst meetings in you. We're very much aware of the demand and supply pending imbalance that was coming. And you said at the time we're gonna manage through that much better than we have. Historically, it reminds me of airlines when you go when you fly now there's no empty seats, so and you've done a masterful job. The stock prices stayed up. Now, granted, you know you've reduced share count. But how have you done that? What is the new discipline that has allowed you to navigate through those icebergs? >>Soviet Full focus on accelerating our technology development. We're focused on making, for example, technology development exploration. I mentioned earlier being the forest to the market with one C D M, which has the smallest feature size, right. That ability to accelerate technology development and deploy it in production to meet our CUSTOMERSNEEDS gives us ability to manage cost reduction ability as well. So Micron has actually in terms of cost reductions on a year over year basis has led the industry both on the same side as well as the NAN site. This has contributed to stronger financial performance of the company. During 2019 there, prices came down due to some excess supply in the industry, and yet Micron, due to its healthy cost position, was able to produce better financial results as well. Another very important element is increasing the mics off high value solutions, infusing the mics off SS D's and Managed man for mobile applications, as well as bringing more high performance memory to the Bennett, did a memory to the benefit of our customers. High value solutions, Cost positioning, technology acceleration. These have bean the elements that will give us long lasting advantage in terms of continuing to weather the potential ups and downs in our industry. And, you know, yes, we're proud of the fact that, unlike in the past, in an environment like will be experienced in 2019 with respect to price declines, Micron would have had media challenges Micron actually delivered, as I said, the second best year in terms of revenues profits as well as free cash flow. And I want to highlight that we narrowed the gap with our competitors. We narrow the gap with our competitors in terms of orbital margin again as a result, off a stronger, more diversified high value product portfolio and our cost reduction capabilities. >>Yeah, and you've also done a great job communicating to Wall Street. So my last question I know you gotta go is around tech for good. Mark Betty of's been really front center on this. You said that are really jar job is to make lives better, because I still say your job is to increase shareholder value as well. Whoa is the CEO who Mrs 4/4 in a row, but then points to tech for good at the same time. New new workers millennials expect checked for good. How do you see those fitting together? What's your philosophy? There >>were very passionate at Micron that it is important for us that we support the communities that be working where our team members 11. Yes, we want to dry for betterment of humanity through bringing the benefit off our technologies and products, you know? And of course, you see your life's changed with the benefit of more memory and storage, whether it is in your smart home or your smartphone or all of the benefits that you're getting from advances in technology today. But we also absolutely have a social responsibility going from customers to communities, really making sure that we had a good corporate citizen. So at my crone, philanthropy is important doing this year. A microloan foundation is matching our team members contributions, and through that through our team member contributions as well as our match, we have given two and 1/2 $1,000,000 to the communities during the course of the year. We have also supported several new initiatives related to stem education as well as basic human needs again in all the countries and sites where micro nasty members. And actually Micron Foundation has given $11 million during our fiscal year 2019 for supporting various causes toward basic human needs, as well as advancement of science, technology and generating and map. And, most importantly, microphone team members more white have contributed 165,000 hours in community giving, volunteering activities, and we are trying to continue to take our engagement with the community to the next level. I considered it very, very important that and our responsibility that is not only about producing best business results, but we need to help our communities and people in need get to the next level off betterment as well. And it's part of there's diversity and inclusion and equality is a very, very important initiative at the company as well. And we're making tremendous progress in that respect as well. That's >>a great story, Sanjay. Thanks. Um I know you're super busy. Get a bunch of customers to see you're an awesome CEO and doing a great job. Really appreciate you taking the time to come on the Cube. Thank you. Thank you >>for being here with you today. >>Fantastic. All right. Thank you for watching. Everybody will be right back with our next guest. Live from Micron inside. 2019. You're watching the Cube?

(lively music) >> Live from San Francisco, it's theCUBE covering Micron Insight 2018. Brought to you by Micron. >> Welcome back to San Francisco Bay everybody, we're here covering Micron Insight 2018. You're watching theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage. My name is Dave Vellante, I'm here with my cohost David Floyer. Sanjay Mehrotra is here, he's the president and CEO of Micron. Sanjay, thanks very much for coming on theCUBE. >> Great to be on the show. >> So quite an event here! First of all beautiful venue. >> Lovely venue. >> Got the Golden Gate that way, we got Nob Hill over there. So tell us about this event. It's not just about hardcore tech and memory. You guys are talking about AI for good, healthcare, changing the world. What's behind that? >> Yeah, our focus is on AI technologies and how AI is really changing the world. In terms of life, in terms of business, in terms of health. This is a showcase of how these technologies are in very very early innings, they've just barely begun. And what's happened is that AI algorithms have been around for a long time but now the compute capability and the memory and storage capability have advanced to the levels that you can really mine through a lot of data real-time, derive lot of insights and translate those insights into intelligence. And Micron plays a pivotal role here because our memory, our storage is where all this data resides, where all this data is processed. So we are very excited to bring together many industry figures, industry luminaries, park leaders, researchers, engineers all here today to engage in a dialogue on where technology is going, where AI is going, how it's shaping the world. And for the realization that hardware is absolutely central to this trend. And memory and storage is key. And we are very excited about what it means for the future. >> So a lot of thought leaders here today. Well first of all you guys have some hard news, which is relevant to what we're talking about. Talk about the hundred million dollar fund and how you've deployed it even just today you've made some sub-announcements. >> So, one of the things we announced today is we are launching a hundred million dollar fund to support, to fund start-ups in AI. Because we really think AI is going to transform the world. We want to be in the front row. With not only the large existing players that are driving this change but also the start-ups that will drive innovation. Having the front row seat with those start-ups, through our investment fund, will really help us accelerate intelligence, accelerate time to market of various AI applications. So a hundred million dollar fund is targeted toward supporting start-ups that are developing AI technologies. And what I'm really excited to talk about here is that 20% of that fund will go to start-ups that have leadership that is represented by women or under-represented groups. Under-represented--those groups that are under-represented in tech today. This demonstrates Micron's commitment to diversity and inclusion in the technologies phase. >> Well that's, well first of all congratulations on that we're big supporters >> Absolutely >> Of women and tech and diversity, it's something that we cover on the theCUBE extensively. And now you've announced two grants just today, a half a million dollars each. One with Stanford, one with Berkeley that we heard. We heard Amazon up on stage talking about Alexa AI, Microsoft was onstage we had NVIDIA on theCUBE earlier. So bringing together an ecosystem that involves academia, your partners, your customers, talk about that a little bit. >> So the two grants that you talked about, those are from Micron Foundation that is again supporting advancement of AI and AI research as well as teaching of AI to kids so that we can build the pipeline of strong engineers and technologists of the future. So the two grants that we have announced today are one to Stanford Precision Health and Integrated Diagnostics Center, 200,000 grant to Stanford, pioneers in AI applications to precision management of your health. Very exciting field that will really truly enrich life and prolong life in the future as well as advance detection of diseases. Second $200,000 grant that we are giving is to Berkeley. Artificial Intelligence Research Center, absolutely cutting-edge that will be applicable to many industries and many walks of life. These are intended to support advancement of AI research. In addition to this advanced curiosity grant to these two institutions later today you'll hear there will be announcing a $100,000 grant to AI4ALL. And this is an institution that is encouraging women and under-represented minorities at high school level, 9th grade to 11th grade to pursue STEM careers. So Micron is really promoting study of advanced research and supporting the pipeline. In addition to this of course our focus today is on bringing together industry luminaries just like you mentioned, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, autonomous driving of the future, automotive partners, BMW, Visteon, really to engage in a dialogue of how AI is advancing in these various applications. We just heard great talk from vice president at Amazon, on Alexa devices really really exciting how those devices are truly making your life so easy and so intelligent. We heard from Microsoft Corporate Vice-President of AI research. So you see we really are as leaders in our industry, we are really bringing together industry experts to engage in a thought-provoking and inspiring dialogue on AI so that when we leave here today we leave with insights into what is coming next but even more importantly what do we all need to do to get there faster, and this is all about technology. >> So Sanjay and David too, Micron is one of the few companies that was here when I started in the business and is still around. At the time you were just a component manufacturer doin' memories and wow to watch the diversification of Micron over the years but also recently, I mean it's incredibly well-run company so congratulations on the recent success. At the analyst event in New York City this year, you talked about not only that diversification in your investments and innovation but you talked about the cyclicality of this business the historical cyclicality of this business you've dampened that down a little bit, for a variety of reasons. The capital requirements in this business are enormous, there's been consolidation. So how is that going, talk about sort of the trends in your business both in terms of diversification and your ability to make this business more predictable. >> So Dave you are very right to know that Micron is 40 year old company, we actually just turned 40, very proud of it. Really a company founded on the principles of innovation and tenacity. In fact the company has contributed to the industry to the world over the course of 40 years, 40,000 patents, just imagine that's a thousand patents a year, three patents a day over the course of 40 years. We are really a prolific inventor and we absolutely through our innovations in memory and storage have shaped the world here. As technology advances it really unleashes more applications and this is what has brought about the change in our industry. Today memory is not just in your PC. Of course it is in this PC but it is also in your data center it is going to be in the autonomous records of the future you going to have as much memory as what you had in the server just a few years ago. It's inside your mobile phone Artificial Intelligence, facial recognition is only possible because of the data and memory that you have in there. You have NAND Flash that is in these devices and with technology advancing that's bringing down the price points of NAND Flash really bringing more SSD's into these notebook computers, making these notebook computers lighter, longer battery life, more powerful. And of course Flash drives are also replacing hard test drives in data centers and cloud computing. So many applications, these diverse applications really have brought greater stability in our industry. And of course technology complexity has over time moderated the supply growth. And that's what we mean that the cyclicality of our industry, yes one or two quarters here or there you can have demand and supply mismatches but overall when you look at the demand trends and combine them with the moderating supply trends the long-term trajectory for our industry is very healthy. In fact we just completed a record year. >> Our fiscal year '18 was a record 30 billion dollar year for us with profitability that puts us at the very top of the most companies with 50% operating margin and with 30 billion in revenue we are actually number two largest semiconductor company in the U.S. And a lot of opportunity ahead given the demand drivers in the industry. >> Massive free cash flow, you've said publicly the stock is undervalued which is ya know, I don't know any CEO that says it's overvalued but nonetheless the performance that you've had suggests that you very well might be right. Go ahead David please. >> Yeah I just wanted to ask your opinion on, you are leading in this area now, very very clearly you're growing faster than the industry, you've had a magnificent year and the whole area is grown both the NAND and the DRAM. How are you judging how much to invest in this for the future? What's the balance between giving money back to the stockholders by buying stock back or versus investing in this what seems to me a very very exciting area. >> Do you have an AI algorithm for that? (laughing) >> We are in a great position where we are extremely disciplined about investing in CapEx to reduce cost of production and to deploy new technologies into production. We are very ROI focused in terms of any CapEx investments we make. We of course invest in R and D. I mentioned earlier 40,000 patents over the course of 40 years that only comes in investment in R and D. Investments in R and D are essential because we are today the most comprehensive technology solutions provider in memory and storage in the world. >> Yeah. >> In the world. With our DRAM, our Flash, our 3D crosspoint technologies, as well as future emerging technologies really position us as the only company in the world that have all of these memory and storage technologies under one company roof. So we do invest very thoughtfully and we manage our expenses very carefully but we do invest in R and D and of course we are committed to driving shareholder value as well. And we had announced earlier in the year ten billion dollar share buy back program with at least 50% of a fee cash flow. Every quarter on an annual basis actually, 50% of our fee cash flow on an annual basis going, at least 50% going toward share buy back. So we are managing the business, all aspects of it, excitedly looking forward to the opportunities. At the same time prudently in an otherwise driven fashion, building shareholder value through investments in R and D and manufacturing. >> Well of course the great Warren Buffett, David, says when asked if stock buy backs are a good investment says if your stock's undervalued it's a good investment, so. Obviously you believe that Sanjay, so. >> Absolutely! >> So thanks, thanks very much for coming on the theCUBE it was great to have you. >> Thank you. >> I hope we can have you back again. >> Thank you. >> We could talk to you for a long long time. >> Thank you very much. >> Alright, keep it right there buddy, >> Thank you. >> We'll be back with our next guest. We're live from San Francisco Bay Micron Insight 2018. You're watching theCUBE. (upbeat music).