The unexpected effect of Trump’s laws — Texas Instruments cuts 400 employees and closes a plant in Texas
The American semiconductor manufacturer Texas Instruments (TI) announced the closure of one of its oldest plants — LFAB in Dallas, Texas. The facility will cease operations by 2027, after more than 40 years in operation.
Reason for Closure
The plant has become technologically outdated and does not meet modern requirements for scalable production. The company opened factories for manufacturing chips on 150-mm wafers in the 1980s, since then the technology has become obsolete, but still had demand for relatively simple semiconductor chips. In connection with the adoption of the CHIPS Act, passed to support the relocation of high-tech manufacturing to the US, TI decided to modernize production with government funding. TI plans to build new factories for 300-mm wafer manufacturing in Utah and Texas. They will have lower production costs and will be able to meet the demand for relatively simple microelectronics, providing a reduction in chip costs by up to 40%.
What is Texas Instruments?
Texas Instruments is one of the largest manufacturers of analog microchips and microcontrollers in the world, founded in 1930 in Dallas. The company is known as the developer of the first commercial transistor, the TI-30 calculator, and chips used in smartphones, cars, and industrial automation. Its main directions are analog electronics, DSP processors, sensors, and power controllers. In the mid-2000s, the company successfully competed with Qualcomm and Mediatek in the production of processors for smartphones and other portable devices, ranking third after Intel and Samsung. TI OMAP processors powered the famous Motorola Milestone (Motorola Droid) and Google Galaxy Nexus. Ultimately, the company fell behind the rapid pace of industry development and in 2012 focused on producing simpler chips.
Source: www.costar.com
