Manufacturing · Profile from Manufacturing Research Companion: Companies, Strategic Moves, and Technical Studies
Texas Instruments
The Dallas-based chipmaker where Jack Kilby built the first integrated circuit in 1958, which spent the next half-century trying almost every electronics business — transistor radios, calculators, home computers, defence electronics, memory, mobile-phone processors — and then, from the mid-2000s, narrowed itself to two things it could make cheaply and sell to tens of thousands of customers for decades: analog chips and embedded processors. Texas Instruments' manufacturing story turns on mature-node scale and owning capacity through the cycle. It was the first company to make analog chips on 300 mm wafers (RFAB in Richardson, Texas, from 2009, from memory, verify), bought fabs from distressed sellers at low prices, and in 2022–26 spent about $5bn a year to build a new generation of 300 mm fabs in Sherman, Texas and Lehi, Utah before it had the demand to fill them. In June 2025 it said it would invest more than $60bn across seven US fabs (company), backed by a CHIPS award of up to $1.6bn (final, Dec 2024). The first Sherman fab, SM1, started production in Dec 2025 (reported). By Q3 2026 capex had fallen to $463m a quarter and free cash flow had recovered — the payoff the strategy was built for.
At a glance
- Founded
- 1930 as Geophysical Service Inc., a seismic oil-exploration company; renamed Texas Instruments in 1951 (from memory, verify)
- Headquarters
- Dallas, Texas
- Ownership / structure
- Public (Nasdaq: TXN); no controlling shareholder
- Leadership (2026)
- Haviv Ilan, president and CEO since Apr 2023, succeeding Rich Templeton, who remained chair (from memory, verify); Rafael Lizardi, CFO (from memory, verify)
- Segments
- Analog (power management and signal chain) and Embedded Processing (microcontrollers and processors); "Other" (DLP, calculators, custom ASICs) (company segments, from memory, verify)
- Scale
- Q3 2026 (company release, 21 Oct 2026): revenue $6.06bn (+28% y/y, one source), net income $2.43bn, EPS $2.62; cash flow from operations $3.4bn in the quarter and $9.9bn over the trailing 12 months; capex $463m in the quarter and $2.58bn over 12 months (vs $4.82bn a year earlier); free cash flow on TI's definition (which adds CHIPS incentive proceeds) $8.42bn trailing 12 months, ~$6.9bn excluding CHIPS money (one analysis)
- Plants (selected)
- 300 mm: RFAB1 and RFAB2 (Richardson, Texas), DMOS6 (Dallas), LFAB1 (Lehi, Utah; ex-Micron, bought 2021) and LFAB2 (under construction), SM1 (Sherman, production from Dec 2025, reported) and SM2 (shell built), with SM3 and SM4 planned; 200 mm and older fabs in Texas, Maine (South Portland), Scotland (Greenock), Germany (Freising), Japan (Aizu, Miho) and China (Chengdu); assembly and test in Malaysia, the Philippines, Mexico and China (from memory, verify list)
- Signature moves (incl. failures)
- Kilby's integrated circuit (1958); calculators, the TI-99/4A and the consumer exits (1972–83); the analog and embedded focus under Templeton and the wireless exit (2004–12); RFAB, the first 300 mm analog fab (2009); the National Semiconductor acquisition (2011, ~$6.5bn); buying Micron's Lehi fab (2021); the Sherman megasite, the CHIPS award and the $60bn plan (2022–25); the 2023–26 capex peak and free-cash-flow dip
8 strategic moves analysed
Each one gets a full strategy file in the companion: context, the decision, the financing, what happened, and the lesson.
1958
Kilby Integrated Circuit
Technology bet / product launch (a new manufacturing process for electronics)
1972
Calculators Home Computers and the Consumer Exits
Product launch (forward integration into consumer products) and exit (failure in home computers)
2004
Templeton Analog Focus and the Wireless Exit
Strategy pivot / divestment (exit from mobile-phone baseband and application processors)
2009
RFAB The First 300mm Analog Fab
New plant (fit-out of an existing shell) / production-system change (analog on 300 mm wafers)
2011
National Semiconductor Acquisition
Acquisition (all-cash purchase of an analog peer)
2021
Lehi LFAB Bought from Micron
Brownfield plant purchase (a 300 mm memory fab converted to analog and embedded production)
2022
Sherman Megasite CHIPS Award and the 60bn Plan
Greenfield plant (four-fab 300 mm site) / government award (CHIPS direct funding and 48D credit) / investment pledge
2023
Capex Peak and the Free Cash Flow Dip
Capacity bet through a downturn (keeping ~$5bn a year of capex while revenue fell)