The first chips leaving Texas Instruments’ new Sherman factory were intended to help other electronics use power: managing batteries, controlling automotive lighting and supporting the electrical demands of data centers.
TI announced production at the Texas fab, SM1, on December 17, 2025, three and a half years after groundbreaking. In a companion account, the company said customers were already receiving chips from the site. That gave the project a concrete milestone beyond a completed building: products had entered the customer supply chain.
SM1 was the first fab in a much larger plan. TI described the Sherman site as a potential $40 billion investment with room for four connected factories. Its December release said the site could eventually support as many as 3,000 direct jobs. Those figures cover the broader development, while the production announcement concerned one fab.
The distinction also applies to volume. TI expected SM1 eventually to make tens of millions of chips daily, with the ramp following customer demand. It did not report that daily output as an achieved December rate.
Why wafer diameter matters
Sherman uses 300-millimeter wafers. That dimension describes the silicon disc on which chips are manufactured, rather than the dimensions of features inside a chip.
TI’s 2025 capital-management presentation estimated about 2.3 times as many chips per 300mm wafer as per 200mm wafer, at roughly 40% lower chip cost. Larger wafers allow more devices to be processed together.
TI’s example showed unpackaged chip cost falling from 20 cents to 12 cents, with assembly, test and other costs unchanged at 20 cents. Total cost consequently fell from 40 cents to 32 cents: a 20% reduction. The 40% figure did not describe total cost or a promised selling-price cut.
That is a useful distinction for customers evaluating semiconductor investment announcements. A larger wafer can improve manufacturing economics while packaging, testing, product mix and factory utilization continue to affect the result.
The products behind the capacity
TI identified analog power products as Sherman’s first category. Their functions connect the new fab to several manufacturing markets: more efficient battery management, longer battery life in portable electronics, automotive lighting and power delivery in computing infrastructure. Those functions remain necessary as the electronics around them change.
TI’s 2025 plan placed SM1 in a 65-to-130-nanometer process range and separated construction, pilot production and qualification from later capacity additions. The strategy prepares buildings and technologies before installing all the equipment an expanded operation would require.
Sherman formed part of TI’s stated plan to invest more than $60 billion across seven fabs in Texas and Utah. That companywide commitment should not be mistaken for spending already completed at SM1.
December’s development was narrower and more useful to measure: the first Sherman fab had begun making chips, and TI said customers were receiving them. The scale of its subsequent contribution would depend on qualified products, equipment additions and demand sufficient to use the capacity.
Sources
- Texas Instruments begins production at its newest 300mm semiconductor manufacturing facility in Sherman — Texas Instruments · 2025-12-17.
- The future starts with the first: Our newest 300mm wafer fab is in production — Texas Instruments · 2025-12-17.
- Capital Management 2025 — Texas Instruments · 2025.
- Sherman, Texas: 300mm wafer fabs — Texas Instruments.