How are they going to afford an investment thats ~1/3rd the value of the company? Seems like one of those announcements that no one follows up on to keep them honest?
cchance · 3h ago
They wont its another marketing scam by the admin lol, promise shit now, don't deliver reap benefits till the public/admin forgets, you dont actually have to do shit you just have to say you will same as the last time
chaosbolt · 11m ago
Yeah, meanwhile >90% of Americans don't want war, yet they will get it... "but akshually it's a republic", yeah, ruled by another country.
hackernewds · 1h ago
The downfall of so many large companies back then, including general Capital, basically turning into a finance arm glorified general electric
ProllyInfamous · 41m ago
>back then
And still.
General Electric was (just a few decades ago) the largest non-gold asset, and isn't even Top 50 anymore.
Saudi Aramco was (just a few years ago) the largest non-gold asset, and isn't even Top 10 anymore.
If you want to read about similarities in Xerox's own hubris/downfall, Dealers of Lightning is one of my favorite non-fiction reads of the past few years (about their SFbay PARC Labs of the 70s/80s... and its failures to adapt).
chneu · 45m ago
CEO doing it to get quick cash from Trump.
Any company large/influential enough to get in front of trump right now is gonna be in the news saying this stuff. The entire admin runs on "the last person to convince trump".
Trump pardoned a bunch of criminals, drug dealers, and other trash people because the right person talked to him at the right time.
This is exactly what people said would happen. It's open season for bribery
MichaelZuo · 3h ago
Mortgaged what future?
The linked article doesn’t even try to complete the argument… there’s not a single reason offered why TI could plausibly have increased total revenues more… instead of just spinning their wheels from a higher cost base.
Or to put it another way, why wouldn’t that revenue growth have gone to their competitors?, which did in fact happen.
spiderfarmer · 3h ago
Can’t blame them for trying to pry a few dollars from an administration that seems desperate to show some wins.
Moto7451 · 3h ago
Especially when the reality of building and permitting will mean someone else, even if it’s from the current administration, will be in power long after the check is cashed and ground broken if it even happens. Because of the time scale there’s plenty of time for the “aw shucks it didn’t work out” if that’s the better path. Hitting a few milestones but not enough to actually break ground can be exceptionally profitable.
bamboozled · 2h ago
It's just pretend to keep the current admin happy, they know he won't be around for long.
Animats · 3h ago
What's a "foundational semiconductor"?
This seems to be a political term, not one the electronics industry uses.[1] "Foundational chips (also called “legacy,” “lagging edge,” and “mature node” semiconductors) are often defined as chips made with a 22nm manufacturing process or above."
Is there actually a lack of 22nm and larger fab capacity in the US? Or is it just that they're not being used much.
What PA and Fairchild did. We haven’t had a new-entrant opening for fundamental semiconductor design for decades, a fact laid bare in their top engineers’ comp. (No clue if this is what they are actually doing.)
rkagerer · 2h ago
Also known as a PR semiconductor.
cwal37 · 4h ago
Also already building a new fab up in Sherman, Texas.
Fabs have pretty decent electricity demand, I actually sited a battery against that one after we did a bit of modeling with the new load vs the solar flows in the area. Siting just means make a land deal, figure out easements, and start working its way through the queue. Might not ever get built though, lot of money and hurdles in the way ha.
Every time I see an industrial announcement like this power is the first thing I think of - where it’s gonna come from and what impact it will have on the existing grid.
alephnerd · 4h ago
Most of these projects invest heavily in renewable energy, becuase the scale makes it cost efficient. During the Biden era, there were a bunch of additional incentives to push for renewable investments in these projects, on top of Texas's very generous renewable tech incentives - most ONG companies began investing heavily in renewables all the way back in the 2000s because they're ENERGY conglomerates first and foremost.
If you have a beating pulse and a strong renewable tech IP, you will raise a seed successfully from the Saudi PIF or Cheveron Ventures even in this market. Sadly, this is HN, not Bookface, so most ideas are bad ideas. Sucks too because it was a very fruitful demo days - one of the more impactful over the past several years.
coliveira · 4h ago
The key phrase here is:
"we are honored to work alongside them and the U.S. government to unleash what’s next in American innovation.”
They're expecting to get money from government to make this happen. If it will be done is anyone's guess.
chneu · 43m ago
Step 1: Announce American Investment.
Step 2: stroke Trump's ego
Step 3: receive money
Step 4: foxconn their way to the bank
georgeecollins · 3h ago
This should be one of the biggest wins for US manufacturing since the Foxconn plant in Wisconsin. /s
Moto7451 · 3h ago
This is what immediately popped in my mind. What’s that definition of insanity again…
I’d love it if things were streamlined when building. Just as a homeowner it’s amazing how hard it can be to get a permit or an inspection. The lame duct tape fix seems to me some weird CMS and ArcGIS, as if that somehow fixes the human and policy problems.
7thaccount · 4h ago
Do they actually plan this, or is it just to make the current administration happy? $60B sounds like a lot of money.
cwal37 · 4h ago
They’ve steadily expanded over the years, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was real. It’s not just calculators, TI chips show up in a lot of military hardware in particular.
bigfatkitten · 3h ago
There are a lot of markets where TI is king, such as in battery management ICs.
jdsully · 1h ago
They make really good VCO+PLL chips. Ultra low phase noise.
xvilka · 1h ago
DSPs as well
UncleOxidant · 3h ago
which generally cost pennies.
baq · 1h ago
If you want to build a fleet of infantry drones and you want to source components from the US there’s a lot of these and many others to buy. Not sure if there’s $60B of them there but they’ll figure out how to waste this much I’m sure.
wongarsu · 1h ago
Which is why they are not planning to make cutting edge semiconductors in the new plant but "foundational semiconductors" aka old nodes that now cost pennies
chneu · 42m ago
These have super low profit margins.
cchance · 3h ago
It's 1/3rd the valuation of the company... its not real lol
No comments yet
duxup · 4h ago
Their announcement seems to be a mix of new and already announced expansions.
idiotsecant · 4h ago
Based on every one of these promises ever, yes. It's probably somewhere between vaporware and a small tertiary facility.
ashwinsundar · 4h ago
What are some things TI promised on, but failed to deliver?
Retric · 3h ago
Number of new jobs for one. They just laid off ~300 people working on an older node in Lehi, Utah, while now claiming they’re going to bring new jobs to Lehi, Utah. Thus “new jobs” don’t really track the actual change in the number of their employees even just at the local level across even moderate timescales.
Similarly hyping up total R&D spending without a tight timeframe is meaningless, they will eventually spend X$ assuming the company survives indefinitely.
More charitably there’s meaningful differences between nodes, but it’s likely a significant portion of the workforce will be rehires.
The adjective "foundational" for semiconductors can be ignored here, it is simply that TI will make more of their existing chips in the US with nothing being different in their current IC lineup of mostly MCUs, ADC, etc simple ICs.
synack · 4h ago
Last I checked, a lot of the US manufactured dies got shipped overseas for packaging. I wonder when they'll have that capability domestically.
alephnerd · 4h ago
Yes.
CHIPS invested heavily in OSAT and Packaging capacity - especially in TX. Samsung, Micron, OmSemi, and TI took full advantage of that under the Biden admin while Intel and TSMC were fighting on the airwaves to undermine each other.
Much of the rest has been reinvested in SK and India (TI is part of the SCL Mohali modernization RFP) as part of the QUAD+ initiative.
A lot of us in the private and public sector working in this space aren't idiots.
OhMeadhbh · 51m ago
So the chips they don't have in stock will be made in the US? So what?
ruined · 3h ago
anyone know if their fab automation scripts are still not under version control
Titan2189 · 3h ago
tell us more
TMWNN · 6h ago
Title shortened by me from "Texas Instruments plans to invest more than $60 billion to manufacture billions of foundational semiconductors in the U.S."
How are they going to afford an investment thats ~1/3rd the value of the company? Seems like one of those announcements that no one follows up on to keep them honest?
And still.
General Electric was (just a few decades ago) the largest non-gold asset, and isn't even Top 50 anymore.
Saudi Aramco was (just a few years ago) the largest non-gold asset, and isn't even Top 10 anymore.
If you want to read about similarities in Xerox's own hubris/downfall, Dealers of Lightning is one of my favorite non-fiction reads of the past few years (about their SFbay PARC Labs of the 70s/80s... and its failures to adapt).
Any company large/influential enough to get in front of trump right now is gonna be in the news saying this stuff. The entire admin runs on "the last person to convince trump".
Trump pardoned a bunch of criminals, drug dealers, and other trash people because the right person talked to him at the right time.
This is exactly what people said would happen. It's open season for bribery
The linked article doesn’t even try to complete the argument… there’s not a single reason offered why TI could plausibly have increased total revenues more… instead of just spinning their wheels from a higher cost base.
Or to put it another way, why wouldn’t that revenue growth have gone to their competitors?, which did in fact happen.
This seems to be a political term, not one the electronics industry uses.[1] "Foundational chips (also called “legacy,” “lagging edge,” and “mature node” semiconductors) are often defined as chips made with a 22nm manufacturing process or above."
Is there actually a lack of 22nm and larger fab capacity in the US? Or is it just that they're not being used much.
[1] https://selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites...
What PA and Fairchild did. We haven’t had a new-entrant opening for fundamental semiconductor design for decades, a fact laid bare in their top engineers’ comp. (No clue if this is what they are actually doing.)
Fabs have pretty decent electricity demand, I actually sited a battery against that one after we did a bit of modeling with the new load vs the solar flows in the area. Siting just means make a land deal, figure out easements, and start working its way through the queue. Might not ever get built though, lot of money and hurdles in the way ha.
Every time I see an industrial announcement like this power is the first thing I think of - where it’s gonna come from and what impact it will have on the existing grid.
If you have a beating pulse and a strong renewable tech IP, you will raise a seed successfully from the Saudi PIF or Cheveron Ventures even in this market. Sadly, this is HN, not Bookface, so most ideas are bad ideas. Sucks too because it was a very fruitful demo days - one of the more impactful over the past several years.
"we are honored to work alongside them and the U.S. government to unleash what’s next in American innovation.”
They're expecting to get money from government to make this happen. If it will be done is anyone's guess.
Step 2: stroke Trump's ego
Step 3: receive money
Step 4: foxconn their way to the bank
I’d love it if things were streamlined when building. Just as a homeowner it’s amazing how hard it can be to get a permit or an inspection. The lame duct tape fix seems to me some weird CMS and ArcGIS, as if that somehow fixes the human and policy problems.
No comments yet
Similarly hyping up total R&D spending without a tight timeframe is meaningless, they will eventually spend X$ assuming the company survives indefinitely.
More charitably there’s meaningful differences between nodes, but it’s likely a significant portion of the workforce will be rehires.
CHIPS invested heavily in OSAT and Packaging capacity - especially in TX. Samsung, Micron, OmSemi, and TI took full advantage of that under the Biden admin while Intel and TSMC were fighting on the airwaves to undermine each other.
Much of the rest has been reinvested in SK and India (TI is part of the SCL Mohali modernization RFP) as part of the QUAD+ initiative.
A lot of us in the private and public sector working in this space aren't idiots.
CNBC: <https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/18/texas-instruments-plans-60-b...>