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Texas Instruments has announced its plans to invest over $60 billion in its seven in-construction fabs across the United States. TI calls the announcement "the largest investment in foundational semiconductor manufacturing in U.S. history", announcing two brand-new Texas fabs and investing in five other existing and in-construction fabs.
The bulk of the investment is allotted for three facilities, Texas Instruments' "mega-sites" in Sherman, Texas, Richardson, Texas, and Lehi, Utah. $40 billion of the investment will go into the Sherman site. Much of this share will help TI's SM1 and SM2 fabs, currently under construction, across the finish line.
Texas Instruments also announced plans for its incoming SM3 and SM4 fabs. The third and fourth fabs on the Sherman site will be built to accommodate "future demand" and will enter their early planning stages thanks to the new investment.
The remainder of the investment has been allotted to the Lehi and Richardson sites. Lehi's first fab will now ramp up production thanks to the investment, with its sister fab LFAB2 continuing construction. Richardson's second fab is also now ramping up its output. The Lehi and Richardson sites are entirely 300mm fabs, producing "foundational" analog chips.
Texas Instruments considers its chips to be "vital for nearly every type of electronic system,” according to the words of CEO Haviv Ilan. It provides chips to major partners, including Apple, Ford, Medtronic, NVIDIA, and SpaceX, all of whom gave positive comments in support of TI's major investment, seemingly reinforcing corporate bonds between the companies.
The major investment announcement follows the steps of other major players in the U.S. chipmaking market, like GlobalFoundries and Micron, all announcing major investments in U.S. fabs this month. Continued pressure from the Trump administration to invest heavily in U.S.-based chip fabrication has squeezed out these announcements, especially after the Department of Commerce threatened to rewrite Biden-era CHIPS Act contracts for receiving companies. Texas Instruments was promised $1.6 billion to expand its Lehi and Texas fabs into more process nodes beyond 300mm, a detail that was notably lacking from today's press release.
Some speculators have questioned how much of Texas Instruments' pledge today is purely political theater; the money to finish construction of its fabs and help its other fabs continue down their roadmaps was already going to be spent. But regardless of the reason, the new announcement of heavy funding into the sites will provide tens of thousands of new jobs, not to mention millions of dollars of funding into local school systems to create clear roadmaps leading local students to work at its fabs.
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