Normally I come on here and talk about the great things happening in the Consumer & Computing Interface realm - specifically SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0). Today, I thought I talk about something great that TI has done for all of our customers.
On July 14th, TI announcedthe that they had acquired two additional fabs from Spansionin Japan. One fab is an operational 200mm fab which will initially produce data converters and amplifiers on TI’s precision HPA07 process technology. The technology transfer is already underway, and this 200mm fab will be in production in 4Q10. This fab will add about $1B worth of annual production for TI’s analog business. The second fab is an empty shell, which we are reserving for future capacity expansions.
Along with these two fabs, TI also purchased 300mm wafer manufacturing equipment from Spansion, which will be sent to the new fab recently open in Richardson, TX (RFAB – the world’s first 300mm analog fab) to help complete Phase II of the expansion of RFAB.
From a fab standpoint, this marks four important capacity increases for TI in the last year. Phase I of RFAB will enable TI to deliver $1B of increased shipments to our customers. Phase II will add an additional $1B. The Spansion 200mm fab adds another $1B, and the empty shell will enable further increases as needed. Well over $3B of increased capability represents an additional 75% over our 2009 analog revenue of $4B.
We are the only semiconductor company to make this level of investment over the last 12 months and while it does not cure all of the near-term capacity/delivery issues that the unprecedented recovery from the last downturn has created across the industry, this positions us very well to meet your needs as the recovery continues.
