Semiconductor maker Micron announces 10% staff reduction, suspends bonuses

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4. They're not a automotive producer, and it's not really worth the effort for them to expand...

Into being one because the automotive industry tends to lag many generations behind current manufacturing processes.

When a company expands, they generally want to build new facilities based around upcoming processes - Because of how long it takes to build out the facility, by the time it's done that upcoming process will be the new standard.

This is why certain industries got hit so hard by the shortages - The chips they needed are older, and most facilities that produced them had since moved on to newer stuff. Then the silicon shortage hit - Like, the actual silicon needed to produce the chips - and companies that manufactured the silicon wafers started prioritizing higher value contracts.

For comparison, Infineon's current top-line automotive chips are based on a 40 nm process. Their next generation line will be based on a 28 nm process through TSMC. Samsung, meanwhile, is currently taking orders for 3 nm chips. On paper, automotive chips are a high value market... But as far as the big manufacturers are concerned, it's barely worth the cost of maintaining the older equipment.

For a shorter explaination, Micron produces memory chips. Meanwhile, most of the holdup is over processing chips.