Texas Instruments Inc. has announced the opening of its 300mm analog manufacturing facility in Richardson, Texas, saying that the new fab will add 250 jobs to the North region of the state by the end of 2010 with up to 1000 positions planned longer term.
The company expects to begin moving equipment into the facility, dubbed RFAB, (“R” for Richardson,“FAB” for fabrication), next month. TI said in a corporate statement that "when it was able recently to invest $172.5 million to purchase semiconductor manufacturing equipment at an opportune price, the company began to quickly outfit RFAB." A representative from TI confirmed with EDN that the equipment planned for use in RFAB will come from TI's recent Qimonda tool buy. A bankruptcy judge recently approved TI's purchase of Qimonda equipment from its Virginia fab. TI reminded that the close of this tool sale is contingent upon additional regulatory and legal review.
TI claimed RFAB will be the world’s only production facility to use 300mm silicon wafers to manufacture analog chips. TI broke ground in 2004 on the 1.1-million-square-foot facility, anticipating future additional manufacturing capacity needs.
“The time is right for this investment,” said Rich Templeton, TI’s Chairman, President and CEO, in a statement. “Customer demand for analog chips is growing, and there’s tremendous desire to save energy and protect the environment. The chips produced here will help our customers make thousands of electronic products that are more energy-efficient.”
The facility will produce analog ICs based on TI’s proprietary process. Customers will use these chips in electronics ranging from smartphones and netbooks, to telecom and computing systems, the company said.
According to Templeton, TI plans to ship the first chips from this facility by the end of 2010. When the first phase of equipment is ramped and producing at full capacity, the facility will be capable of shipping more than $1 billion worth of analog chips per year.
TI said that hiring will begin immediately for 250 jobs in RFAB. “These are high-quality, well-paying engineering, manufacturing, and administrative jobs for our North Texas region," Templeton said. "The infrastructure that a facility like this requires will create other indirect jobs with suppliers and support services." When fully operational, TI said the fab may employ as many as 1,000 people.
The fab is the latest manufacturing expansion for the Dallas-based company. Earlier this year, TI opened Clark, an assembly and test facility in the Philippines. TI said it also has been installing new test equipment at several other locations, and is in the process of installing newly acquired 200mm manufacturing equipment for analog chip production at sites around the world, including Dallas.
TI further noted that as part of the RFAB agreement between community and state partners, the nearby University of Texas at Dallas will receive a total of $300 million from the Texas Enterprise Fund, the Texas General Land Office, the UT System, and private donors for improvement of its engineering and research programs.
TI also boasted that RFAB was the first semiconductor facility to achieve Gold certification with the US Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program.
TI's RFAB is the second major US-based manufacturing move made this year. GlobalFoundries in July officially broke ground on the construction of Fab 2, a new 300mm semiconductor manufacturing facility located at the Luther Forest Technology Campus in Saratoga County, NY.
Texas Instruments
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