LEHI — IM Flash Technologies LLC on Friday revealed it will hire 1,850 people over the next two years and put its corporate headquarters at the former Micron Technology Inc. facility here.

IM Flash is a joint venture between Micron and Intel Corp. The Lehi facility will produce NAND Flash memory chips used in a variety of consumer electronics, removable storage and handheld communications devices.

Micron and Intel announced the venture in November, but Micron representatives at the time said only that Lehi could see "hundreds of jobs" as the new company ramped up operations there.

The employment figure was made public Friday morning when the Governor's Office of Economic Development approved a tax-rebate incentive to help the company.

The average base salary will be about $50,000, which is more than twice the Utah County median of $22,300. Job information is available at www.imftech.com.

Board documents indicate the capital investment for IM Flash will be $3 billion to $5 billion, which includes $1.2 billion to build out the facility — completing the fabrication portion and office space for the headquarters — and the rest for chip manufacturing equipment and other start-up costs.

The state tax incentive equates to up to 30 percent of new state revenue over a five-year period after the plant is operating. The incentive deal also calls for the operations to remain in Utah for at least 10 years.

Micron announced plans for the Lehi plant in March 1995, saying the $1.3 billion plant would employ about 3,500 people. But a downturn in the chip market followed. It had only 500 workers in mid-2000 involved in testing, not fabrication, and much of the 2.3 million square feet on 2,100 acres remained dormant.

Micron is in the process of moving the chip-testing operations from Lehi to Boise.

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