Dive Brief:
- Texas Instruments is the latest chipmaker to score CHIPS and Science Act funds, nabbing $1.6 billion in direct funding, the Commerce Department announced on Friday.
- The money will go toward Texas Instruments’ three upcoming 300 mm wafer fabs in Lehi, Utah, and Sherman, Texas. The chipmaker previously announced plans to spend $18 billion through 2029 to bolster its domestic manufacturing capacity.
- With the CHIPS funding, the chipmaker is eligible for up to $3 billion in proposed loans. The company is also slated to receive between $6 billion and $8 billion in manufacturing tax credits and $10 million in proposed workforce development funding.
Dive Insight:
Texas Instruments' funding adds to the quickening pace of the White House's dole-out of $39 billion in CHIPS money as the Biden administration enters its final months.
Texas Instruments marks the 16th company to receive CHIPS funds across 15 states.
It’s the second company to receive funds for facilities based in Sherman. Silicon wafer manufacturer GlobalWafers received $400 million last month to support new manufacturing facilities in the Texas city, as well as in St. Peters, Missouri.
Dallas-based Texas Instruments currently operates 15 manufacturing locations across three continents, including an existing fab in Texas. It plans to use the money to build the cleanroom and pilot production line at its first Sherman plant, construct the Utah plant's cleanroom and build the shell of its second Sherman fab.
Like other U.S. chipmakers, Texas Instruments aims to better support its own production needs by boosting its internal manufacturing capacity. The company wants to bring more than 90% of its wafer manufacturing and assembly and test operations in-house by 2030.
"With plans to grow our internal manufacturing to more than 95% by 2030, we're building geopolitically dependable, 300mm capacity at scale to provide the analog and embedded processing chips our customers will need for years to come," President and CEO Haviv Ilan said in a statement.
The Commerce Department touted the funding for the maker of current-generation and mature-node chips, known as "foundational" chips, as a key way to prevent future semiconductor supply chain issues like those seen during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"With our proposed investment in the world’s global leader of current-generation and mature-node chips, we would significantly advance our economic and national security and mitigate supply chain vulnerabilities," National Institute of Standards and Technology Director Laurie E. Locascio said in a statement.
The projects are expected to create more than 2,000 direct jobs, and production at the first Sherman fab is expected to begin as early as next year. The campus could eventually include up to four plants through an up to $30 billion investment.
Texas Instruments announced the $11 billion Utah project in February 2023, with ambitions to produce tens of millions of analog and embedded processing chips daily at full capacity.
