A look at Texas Instruments' new 300mm wafer fab in Sherman, Texas, a part of its $60B US investment megaproject where some chips for iPhones will be made
Not gonna lie ... the last 8 months have been grueling. … Bluesky: Adam Levine / @notthatadamlevine : Texas Instruments has spent $52 billion in capital expenditures IN THE LAST 45 YEARS. This would be a huge shift in how it does business. [embedded post] Forums: Hacker News : Texas Instruments' new plants where Apple will make iPhone chips r/apple : Inside Texas Instruments' $60 billion U.S. megaproject, where Apple will make iPhone chips
Context & Ripple Effects
Texas Instruments' Sherman build-out has progressed from a 2021 plan for as many as four Texas fabs to a visible operating-scale project within its more than $60 billion U.S. plant commitment.
The project also extends a regional manufacturing cluster: prior coverage placed TI and Samsung among major Texas fab projects, while GlobalWafers' planned Sherman wafer factory positioned upstream silicon supply in the same city.
First-order effects
- Texas Instruments adds 300mm manufacturing capacity in Sherman, making the company a more direct domestic supplier for chips used in iPhones.
- Apple gains a stated U.S.-made source for some iPhone chips, while TI takes on the execution burden of a capital program far larger than its historical pace.
Second-order effects
- Sherman’s fab cluster can concentrate demand for construction, equipment, materials, and specialized labor; the nearby GlobalWafers project makes the local wafer-supply link especially relevant.
- Other Texas chip projects face a clearer benchmark for attracting customers and sustaining long-lived capacity, rather than merely announcing facilities.
Third-order effects
- If customer commitments continue to accompany new fabs, U.S. chip sourcing may become more geographically diversified across upstream wafers and chip fabrication, though production economics will determine how durable that shift is.
- The project illustrates the semiconductor capacity-lag dynamic: multiyear capital decisions are increasingly tied to supply-chain resilience and anchor customers, not only near-term device demand.
The trend: This is one data point in the shift toward regionally clustered, customer-backed U.S. semiconductor manufacturing capacity.