TI’s new 300-m wafer fab in Richardson

RICHARDSON (TEXAS), USA: Lining up production of 300-mm wafers, chip giant Texas Instruments Inc will soon kick start operations at its new 300-mm analog semiconductor fab in Richardson, Texas.

According to a news report on EETimes, the Richardson facility will be the first analog chip fab to use 300-mm wafers. It has been pointed out that the company would begin to ship the first chips from the fab by the end of next year.

TI is on track to develop the facility in phases. The first phase of equipment would see the company ramping up the facility. The fab will then be capable of shipping more than $1 billion worth of analog chips a year.

To be known as RFAB (Richardson fab) is the culmination of the company’s work toward establishing a state-of-the-art facility for 300-mm analog semiconductor. The company had made the first move towards building the new fab way back in 2004. The RFAB has been incorporated on a 1.1-million-square-foot facility.

An EETimes report, in the meantime, said that last week a US bankruptcy judge had approved the purchase by TI of $172.5 million worth of chip production equipment from Qimonda AG's fab in Sandston. The company will now move this equipment from Virginia to Richardson to equip RFAB. Further, t would also be hiring 250 professionals to man the RFAB.