'A classic competitive chip industry knock-out punch' is how TI's decision to build a 300mm fab for analogue was described at IFS 2010, earlier this week.
"No other analogue competitor will be able to compete", said Malcolm Penn, CEO of Future Horizons, adding: "Well done! This is the old TI we all know and love."
Recently TI spent $172.5 million buying equipment from the DRAM fab of Qimonda in a bankruptcy sale.
This equipment is to be installed in TI's new fab at
Moreover, by targeting some green products like solar panels, smart-metering and energy efficient appliances, TI qualifies for a $51 million federal tax credit under President Barack Obama's $2.3 billion tax credit programme to stimulate plants which manufacture clean energy products.
"A 2.25x chip per wafer increase on a wafer cost increase of 40%, equals a 40% cost reduction on a per chip basis", added Penn, "this is going to kill every other guy in the analogue business. A 40% cost reduction on parts is something no one else can match competing with eight inch and six inch plants. When TI get that on-stream they will kill everyone in the world."
What this also does is kill off Europe's fab-lite(sic) sttategy once and for all. That plan depended on finding niches for obsolete 8 inch fabs to fulful, mostly in analogue mixed signal. But if TI can fill the same niche on 12 inch even without the technology shrinks possible with this equipment it will always get the business.
Well done TI. Only problem for you I can see is getting the next set of 12 inch equipment so cheaply when you need to expand.
And really well done to the EC for throwing away an industry you helped build up so successfully in the first place.