TI Will Splash Out Up To $30B On Wafer Fabs

Everything's bigger and better in Texas, as the saying goes. Texas Instruments (TI) has announced it's fixin' to build two silicon wafer fabrication plants there – and maybe another pair after that.

The venerable company will soon break ground on a pair of new 300mm semiconductor wafer fabs in Sherman, in the northeast of the Lone Star State. The site is apparently large enough to host four such facilities. If TI builds 'em all, it expects to spend $30 billion on the project.

Work will commence in 2022, and production is predicted to commence in 2025 if all goes well.

The company's not discussed the particulars of the products it proposes to produce in the facilities, but did state it sees "industrial and automotive markets" as hot markets.

TI has another 300mm wafer fab already under construction in Richardson, Texas, and expects it will start producing product in the second half of 2022. Another facility in Utah will get to work in early 2023. They'll join two existing 300mm facilities that TI already operates. `

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It is unclear if TI plans to sell the new facilities' output as bare wafers, or combine its die services, or both.

Whatever the firm chooses, the new fabs will be welcomed by a great many companies further up the semiconductor value chain. Even if current supply problems have eased by the time the factories come online, increasing numbers of products rely on electronic innards.

TI's forthcoming fabs seem set to be joined by facilities owned by Samsung, according to Korean media reports that point out the Chaebol has active regulatory paperwork pending only in the city of Taylor, deep in the heart of Texas. Intel has also committed to building new facilities in Arizona. ®