Analog IC leader announced: 4 new 12-inch fabs

On November 18, the leading analog chip leader Texas Instruments (TI) announced that it will start the construction of a new 12-inch semiconductor wafer manufacturing base in Sherman, north of Texas (“Texas”) in 2022. project.

As we all know, the demand for semiconductors in the industrial and automotive markets has continued to grow in recent years, and this trend will continue to extend in the future. TI plans to build four new wafer fabs at the new base to meet the market demand generated year by year. It is reported that the former Construction of both plants will start in 2022.

Rich Templeton, Texas Instruments Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, said: “The future 12-inch wafers manufactured by Texas Instruments at the Sherman fab will be used in the production of analog and embedded processing products. Part of a long-term capacity plan to continue to enhance our manufacturing capabilities and technological competitive advantage to meet the needs of our customers for decades to come. Our commitment to North Texas spans more than 90 years, and this decision highlights our commitment to the Sherman community deep cooperation and investment.”

The first fab is expected to start production as early as 2025. If all four factories of the base are finally completed, the total investment will reach about 30 billion US dollars, and 3,000 jobs can be directly created year by year.

The new fab will join TI’s existing 12-inch wafer fabs, including DMOS6 in Dallas, Texas; RFAB1 in Richardson, Texas; And Texas Instruments’ recently acquired LFAB in Lehi, Utah, expected to start production in early 2023.

12-inch fab becomes a “sweet pastry”

In the current situation where the “lack of cores” market continues to be difficult to alleviate, expansion has become the preferred choice for the majority of chip manufacturers. But it is impossible to build a fab in a short period of time and release capacity immediately. It takes one to two years to build a large fab, and the initial investment in a 12-inch fab pursuing advanced processes is about $10 billion, with a large portion of the cost coming from equipment spending. So, chipmakers don’t build fabs on a whim. They need to keep their fabs operating at sufficient rates to be profitable. There is a lot of planning and forecasting between them and their customers.

According to the latest data provided by SEMI, the number of 8-inch fabs is expected to increase from 212 in 2020 to 222 in 2022. In contrast, the number of 12-inch fabs is expected to increase from 129 in 2020 to 149 in 2022. The addition of 12-inch fabs is difficult, mainly because the production line requires newer and more expensive equipment. As a result, 12-inch fab equipment spending is expected to grow from $78 billion in 2021 to $88 billion in 2022, SEMI said.

At present, in addition to Texas Instruments, there are some very noteworthy fab projects under construction, such as TSMC’s 12-inch fab in Arizona, Intel’s 12-inch fab in Arizona, SMIC’s International expanded the new 12-inch production line in Beijing and Shenzhen, as well as Japan’s Kioxia and South Korea’s Samsung, and they all have the idea of ​​building a 12-inch fab next.