Inside Texas Instruments' Sherman factory
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Texas Instruments' SM1 opened last year. Photo: Naheed Rajwani-Dharsi/Axios
There is a high chance that your most-used electronics — such as those in your car and phone — include materials manufactured in Richardson or Sherman.
Why it matters: Although Americans usually associate Texas Instruments with graphing calculators, semiconductor chips are the Dallas-based company's biggest revenue generator.
How it works: Semiconductor chips function like the brains of electronics. The chips are intricately designed to process electronic signals and direct specific outcomes, such as powering on a laptop or starting the engine of a car.
- "Ever since really the '90s, semiconductors have been transformative in our lives," TI process engineering branch manager Kevin Gable tells Axios.
State of play: The company opened its Sherman site in December, with one factory in production and three more planned if the company needs more space in the future.
- SM1 manufactures large 300mm wafers that are sent to the company's other sites to be processed into individual chips. Those chips are tested and packaged before being sent to TI's clients, which include Apple, Ford, Nvidia and SpaceX.
Fun fact: TI can manufacture over 1 million chips an hour company-wide.
- The Sherman site will be capable of producing more than 100 million chips per day once all four factories reach full production, Gable says.
The bottom line: "The amount of control and precision that goes into building each of these devices, depending on what the end product is, is hard to really put into words — but it's something that we love doing here," Gable says.