Posted on 06/18/2025 12:20:05 PM PDT by DFG
Texas is slated to capture a massive chunk of a $60 billion semiconductor investment by Texas Instruments, and plants in Sherman and Richardson are poised to get the lion's share of the spending.
Dallas-based TI (Nasdaq: TXN) revealed June 18 it has committed more than $60 billion across three semiconductor complexes in Richardson and Sherman, Texas, and Levi, Utah. The funding appears to be the largest semiconductor investment in the U.S. and would support more than 60,000 jobs across the country.
The company has dedicated about $40 billion of the investment to its Sherman campus, $6 billion to its Richardson site and the rest of the funding to its Utah campus.
The announcement comes as the company confirmed to Dallas Business Journal that it completed the first plant in its Sherman mega-site after three years of construction and is currently focused on installing equipment and moving employees into the facility. The plant will start shipping semiconductors, which are used in a wide range of products such as phones and cars, later this year.
Time to bring back the TI-99/4!
Do you know how many Speak-n-Spells (tm) they sold?
Great news!
“[TI said] that it completed the first plant in its Sherman mega-site after three years of construction and is currently focused on installing equipment and moving employees into the facility. The plant will start shipping semiconductors, which are used in a wide range of products such as phones and cars, later this year.”
How can the plant be “completed” if they are just moving equipment in now. And how can the plant be in production in less than six months? Must be older semiconductor tech.
Semi conductors are pretty important. If China occupies Taiwan, this will be the reason.
“”””Texas is slated to capture a massive chunk of a $60 billion semiconductor investment by Texas Instruments”””
We need to start asking where TI is going to get $60 billion to actually make these investments.
re: “How can the plant be “completed” if they are just moving equipment in now. And how can the plant be in production in less than six months? Must be older semiconductor tech.”
Between clean rooms and utilities (special electric, water, special HVAC, etc) it takes time to outfit a ‘front end’ versus just build plain old office space ... then there was the order to be placed for semiconductor fab (fabrication) equipment; some of this is off-the-shelf but leading-edge equipment can have lead times measured into years.
re: “ I still have a couple if you want ‘em! “
Usagi Electric (YT channel) was doing a special on the TMS9900 and featured the 99/4A a few weeks back ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADigs7hlLTM
Millions. Exact number isn’t known.
TI-59 got me through my Chemical Engineering degree. I was a TI-59 wizard.
“””We need to start asking where TI is going to get $60 billion to actually make these investments.”””
Here are some of TI’s financials.
LONG TERM DEBT: $7 BILLION IN 2020 -— $14 BILLION IN 2024
NET INCOME: $5 BILLION IN 2020 -— $5 BILLION IN 2024
TI has already doubled its debt in the past 5 years. Who is going to buy TI’s bonds to finance a $60 billion new investment?
Michael Milken
“As of June 2025 Texas Instruments has a market cap of $180.34 Billion USD.
This makes Texas Instruments the world’s 82th most valuable company by market cap according to our data.”
Per: https://companiesmarketcap.com/texas-instruments/marketcap/
“We need to start asking where TI is going to get $60 billion to actually make these investments.”
That’s not hard given their size. Apple just announced a $500 billion investment in AI. When a public company announces such things they have to ‘show their work’.
A boss of mine worked at Applied Materials for many years. The startup time for semiconductor equipment (especially the most advanced tech) is long.
re: “TI-59 got me through my Chemical Engineering degree. “
Little bit of trivia (that only means something to me I suppose) -
I met Jerry Merryman in 1990. He’s significant b/c his name is one of those on the circa 1967 TI calculator patent that hung in the main outer office at corporate headquarters in the North Building / Expressway site in Dallas around 1990 ...
On one occasion he described how he had to manually remove inter-trace metalization on the calculator chips they had fabricated in order to get prototypes functional.
PS I had an SR-50 (not programmable) for EE schooling, and later a TI-59 while at TI.
This one?
MINIATURE ELECTRONIC CALCULATOR
United States Patent 3819921
Binary-coded decimal electronic calculator capable of adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing with some degree of automatic decimal point placement to provide a visual display of answers of up to 12 decimal digits. The decimal digits are serially displayed at a speed compatible with the calculator operations. The parts of the calculator are so adapted electrically and mechanically in relation to each other to result in a minature portable battery operated calculator of extremely small dimensions for example the outside case dimensions of 41/4 inches by 61/8 inches by 13/4 inches and very low weight of about 45 ounces, having a calculating capability only before obtainable in calculators of much larger size and weight while retaining mechanical and operational simplicity. Some significant aspects of the calculator are the primary electronics embodied in an integrated semiconductor circuit array located in substantially one plane for performing the arithmetic calculations and generating the control signals, a keyboard input arrangement located in substantially one plane parallel to the integrated semiconductor circuit array for producing unique electrical signals corresponding to number and command entries and a visual display using a semiconductor array, as for a thermal printer for printout.
Another little bit of trivia (that prolly only means something to me I suppose) -
We used to walk past what was called the ‘Language lab’ where these guys were doing the Speak&Spell work on our way to the cafeteria for lunch ... their lab was on the 1st floor of the North Building on the south side at the time (78-80 timeframe) en route to the NB cafeteria.
The many version of the S&S: https://www.retroist.com/p/speak-and-spell
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