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Texas Instruments injects $60B into U.S. chip manufacturing
The company will partner with Nvidia, Apple, Ford, SpaceX and others to spur domestic semiconductor production.
Texas Instruments on Wednesday launched a $60 billion plan to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing across seven facilities in Utah and Texas -- the largest effort by a single U.S. company in history.
The vendor said the investment will help create a domestic supply chain that will support semiconductor needs for everything from vehicles to smartphones and data centers. In addition to the manufacturing investment, partnerships with Nvidia, Apple, Ford and SpaceX will also help spur 60,000 new U.S. jobs, according to the company.
"TI is building dependable, low-cost 300mm capacity at scale to deliver the analog and embedded processing chips that are vital for nearly every type of electronic system," Haviv Ilan, president and CEO of Texas Instruments, said in a statement. Low-cost 300mm refers to the size of the silicon wafer.
The investment will bring two more fabrication plants to Sherman, Texas, upping the company's total to four at that site. The company will also use the funds to increase production at its sites in Richardson, Texas, and Lehi, Utah.
TI said hundreds of millions of chips will be produced daily at the sites in Sherman, Texas, which will provide 1.3 million square feet of clean room space for manufacturing. The Sherman sites alone will cost up to $40 billion of the planned investment, according to the company.
Stephen Sopko, an analyst at HyperFrame Research, said the implications for the domestic semiconductor supply are substantial, but realizing gains from increased manufacturing will take time.
"The fabs aren't built quickly," he said. "The [types of advanced semiconductors] announced are key for U.S. domestic electronics and industrial manufacturing to expand in the coming years."
300mm wafer supply boost
AI infrastructure gets a boost from 300mm silicon wafers in several ways, as they are used in manufacturing complex processors and chips required for AI accelerators used in advanced AI systems and data centers. AI GPU leader Nvidia uses the 300mm wafers as a foundation for its AI chips.
"Nvidia and TI share the goal to revitalize U.S. manufacturing by building more of the infrastructure for AI factories here in the US," Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia, said in a statement. In April, Nvidia announced plans to build AI supercomputers in Texas with Nvidia Blackwell chips produced at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s Arizona plant.
Texas Instruments is already a major supplier for Apple, which uses TI chips in its devices for power management, audio processing and sensor interfaces. TI chips are found in Apple's specialized devices, such as the Apple Pencil Pro and Vision Pro VR headset.
SpaceX also uses TI's 300mm SiGe technology manufactured in Sherman, Texas, for its global Starlink satellite internet service.
Sopko said TI is strengthening its position in the semiconductor ecosystem. He said the fab expansions are "essential for their customer's power management, microcontrollers and sensors in just about all electronics manufacturing. Few companies build high-volume 300mm wafer capacity for these technologies in the U.S., so TI strengthens its dominance in the analog segment."
TI credited President Donald Trump's administration efforts and support. The administration has used ongoing tariff negotiations to encourage domestic manufacturing.
Former President Joe Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act, which allocated $53 billion to support domestic semiconductor manufacturing, into law in 2022. In the past, Trump has criticized the law, telling Congress during a March address, "You should get rid of the CHIPS Act," and calling the Act "horrible." And his administration has been working to renegotiate grants to semiconductor firms.
In December, TI said it would receive up to $1.6 billion in CHIPS Act funding to support the sites in Texas and Utah. A company spokesperson said those funds would not be used in this latest endeavor.
Shane Snider, a veteran journalist with more than 20 years of experience, covers IT infrastructure at Informa TechTarget.
