Dallas-based Texas Instruments Inc. touted plans to spend more than $60 billion on semiconductor plants in the U.S., making it the latest chipmaker to promote its domestic manufacturing ambitions as the Trump administration urges investments and threatens to upend the sector with tariffs.
The technology company said its long-term capital spending plan remains unchanged. The total includes amounts allotted to plants that are already being built and equipped in the process of bringing them up to full production. The chipmaker will begin construction of two new factories at its site in Sherman based on business demand.
Texas Instruments previously embarked on a program to bulk up its in-house production, countering the general trend in the industry toward outsourcing, even before the U.S. government offered subsidies to restore domestic chipmaking under President Joe Biden. The company’s leadership told investors that it made sense to establish new, more capable plants — and to build them in the U.S .— to increase its competitiveness, particularly against Chinese competitors.
Texas Instruments leads the market for analog chips, less-advanced components that convert real-world things like sound and pressure into electronic signals. Chinese companies are rapidly expanding their capabilities in that area, in part because U.S. regulations limit their ability to go after high-end processors. Washington officials have been concerned for years about the risk of China dominating that market, and the Biden administration supported Texas Instruments and other makers of such components with grants from the 2022 Chips and Science Act.
Now, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is renegotiating Chips Act awards as he urges companies to further expand their projects — all while his agency probes potential tariffs on semiconductors. In addition to Texas Instruments, three other chipmakers — GlobalFoundries Inc., Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Micron Technology Inc. — have touted existing and new spending under the Trump administration, without the promise of additional government grants. They’re all likely to benefit from generous tax credits on the projects, which Texas Instruments has said are a critical incentive.
“President Trump has made it a priority to increase semiconductor manufacturing in America — including these foundational semiconductors that go into the electronics that people use every day,” Lutnick said in a statement about the investment from Texas Instruments.
Texas Instruments’ rapid increase in capital expenditure has disappointed some investors, who put money into the stock seeking higher returns. In the long term, the company has pledged to deliver all of its excess cash to shareholders in the form of dividends and buybacks.
Texas Instruments reassured disaffected investors by telling them that the increased spending was a temporary spike — and that once it had finished revamping a Utah plant and building its Sherman facilities, it would slow down its capital expenditures and return to offering bigger returns.
In April, Chief Executive Officer Haviv Ilan told investors that “we’re 70% through the elevated investments. So we’re in the, approaching the last innings of the elevated capex period.”
- Ian King and Mackenzie Hawkins for Bloomberg