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Texas instruments Commits to $60 Billion Investment for 7 US Chip Plants

Texas instruments Commits to $60 Billion Investment for 7 US Chip Plants

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Texas Instruments gave its US manufacturing capabilities a huge boost with the announcement of a new $60 billion investment. As the White House has pushed chipmakers to bring manufacturing to the US, several industry leaders, including Apple, Micron, Nvidia, and TSMC, have announced significant investments, both in new projects and construction already underway. TI has plants in various stages of construction in Utah and Texas.
Unlike Micron and TSMC, which are known for building ever-smaller, bleeding-edge nodes, TI focuses on foundational chips. As Reuters notes, TI builds chips for a range of industries. It is also well known for its calculators, which are a staple for high school and college classes and college entrance exams.
Credit: Texas Instruments
'Ti is building dependable, low-cost 300mm capacity at scale to deliver the analog and embedded processing chips that are vital for nearly every type of electronic system,' said Haviv Ilan, president and CEO of TI, in a statement. 'Leading US companies such as Apple, Ford, Medtronic, Nvidia, and SpaceX rely on TI's world-class technology and manufacturing expertise, and we are honored to work alongside them and the US government to unleash what's next in American innovation.'
At this point, TI has two fabs in Lehi, Utah, two in Richardson, Texas, and two in Sherman, Texas, with two more planned. Lehi's LFAB1 fab produces 300mm wafers, while LFAB2 is under construction. Both of the fabs in Richardson are producing wafers, though RFAB2 hasn't yet reached full production.
Meanwhile, Sherman's massive fab cluster is just getting started. Fab SM1 is expected to start production this year. TI says that construction is done on the exterior of Fab SM2. According to TI, the three fab sites will eventually support more than 60,000 jobs.
Credit: Texas Instruments
The White House is considering large tariffs for semiconductors, which is likely playing a significant role in the flurry of investment announcements we've seen from chipmakers over the past few months. Several companies have sent letters to the Commerce Secretary to argue against tariff moves that could hurt their business. Some, like TSMC, have argued that the tariffs could put enough strain on their revenue to undermine the construction efforts they have underway in the US.
Although today's announcement marks TI's biggest investment in manufacturing facilities in the US, the company also made commitments prior to this year. In 2024, it secured approval of a $1.61 billion subsidy from the CHIPS Act and announced plans to invest as much as $18 billion then.

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Elon Musk trades threats with Trump: What it could mean for SpaceX, Starship in Texas
Elon Musk trades threats with Trump: What it could mean for SpaceX, Starship in Texas

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Elon Musk trades threats with Trump: What it could mean for SpaceX, Starship in Texas

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ChatGPT use linked to cognitive decline, research reveals
ChatGPT use linked to cognitive decline, research reveals

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ChatGPT use linked to cognitive decline, research reveals

Relying on the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT to help you write an essay could be linked to cognitive decline, a new study reveals. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab studied the impact of ChatGPT on the brain by asking three groups of people to write an essay. One group relied on ChatGPT, one group relied on search engines, and one group had no outside resources at all. The researchers then monitored their brains using electroencephalography, a method which measures electrical activity. The team discovered that those who relied on ChatGPT — also known as a large language model — had the 'weakest' brain connectivity and remembered the least about their essays, highlighting potential concerns about cognitive decline in frequent users. 'Over four months, [large language model] users consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels,' the study reads. 'These results raise concerns about the long-term educational implications of [large language model] reliance and underscore the need for deeper inquiry into AI's role in learning.' The study also found that those who didn't use outside resources to write the essays had the 'strongest, most distributed networks.' While ChatGPT is 'efficient and convenient,' those who use it to write essays aren't 'integrat[ing] any of it' into their memory networks, lead author Nataliya Kosmyna told Time Magazine. Kosmyna said she's especially concerned about the impacts of ChatGPT on children whose brains are still developing. 'What really motivated me to put it out now before waiting for a full peer review is that I am afraid in 6-8 months, there will be some policymaker who decides, 'let's do GPT kindergarten,'' Kosmyna said. 'I think that would be absolutely bad and detrimental. Developing brains are at the highest risk.' But others, including President Donald Trump and members of his administration, aren't so worried about the impacts of ChatGPT on developing brains. Trump signed an executive order in April promoting the integration of AI into American schools. 'To ensure the United States remains a global leader in this technological revolution, we must provide our Nation's youth with opportunities to cultivate the skills and understanding necessary to use and create the next generation of AI technology,' the order reads. 'By fostering AI competency, we will equip our students with the foundational knowledge and skills necessary to adapt to and thrive in an increasingly digital society.' Kosmyna said her team is now working on another study comparing the brain activity of software engineers and programmers who use AI with those who don't. 'The results are even worse,' she told Time Magazine. The Independent has contacted OpenAI, which runs ChatGPT, for comment.

Intel claims 18A, the node Pat bet the company on, is either 25% faster or 38% more efficient than Intel 3. Though that's a node Intel didn't have enough faith in to release for desktops or laptops
Intel claims 18A, the node Pat bet the company on, is either 25% faster or 38% more efficient than Intel 3. Though that's a node Intel didn't have enough faith in to release for desktops or laptops

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Intel claims 18A, the node Pat bet the company on, is either 25% faster or 38% more efficient than Intel 3. Though that's a node Intel didn't have enough faith in to release for desktops or laptops

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Intel has been deep diving on its upcoming 18A chip node at the VLSI Symposium in Japan. And if the company's claims are to be believed, 18A is looking pretty sweet. Among other factoids, Intel says it's either up to 25% faster at the same power level, or up to 38% more efficient at the same frequency compared with the Intel 3 node. That's very promising for laptop battery life in particular. Of course, Intel 3 is a node of which we have absolutely zero experience. That's because Intel has never used Intel 3 for a consumer chip, choosing instead to go with TSMC's N3 node for both its Lunar Lake laptop chip and latest Arrow Lake desktop and mobile CPU family, as used for the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K. The most advanced Intel node in the PC is Intel 7, which is a rebrand of Intel's infamous 10nm technology, which ended up arriving the better part of a decade late. Anyway, what to make of these claims from Intel? Specifically and compared to Intel 3, Intel says that in low voltage 0.65 V operation, 18A is either 18% faster or 38% more efficient, while in high voltage 1.1 V mode, it's 25% faster or 36% more efficient. In other words, in low voltage mode you can either run the same clock speed as Intel 3 and use 38% less power, or use the same power and enjoy 18% faster clocks. Meanwhile, in the high performance, high voltage mode, you can choose between either 25% higher clocks for the same power consumption as Intel 3 or the same clocks with 36% lower consumption. Any way you slice it, these are very nice numbers. It's just hard to draw too many conclusions given the scarcity of comparable Intel chips on the Intel 3 node. For now, it's only the Xeon 6 Granite Rapids server CPU, launched earlier this year, that's built on Intel 3. Moreover, the fact that Intel passed over Intel 3 for Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake hardly seems like a vote of confidence in its own manufacturing tech. The point being that Intel also made some bullish claims about Intel 3 and an 18% performance-per-watt increase over Intel 4, but it seems like we'll never get an Intel 3 chip in a PC. What's more, even if these claims are accurate, there's the question of yields. Can Intel actually produce 18A chips at scale? Answers to all these questions will presumably come later this year when the Panther Lake mobile CPU with an 18A CPU die is supposed to be released. If Intel's numbers are accurate, Panther Lake ought to be a much more efficient laptop CPU, enabling clearly improved battery life. At least, that's compared to Intel 3. Exactly how 18A compares with TSMC N3, which is the node used by Intel for Lunar Lake's CPU cores is a separate matter. The takeaway here, then, is that this is all very complicated. Intel has released some very promising numbers. But they involve comparison with another Intel node which itself is only available in a range of server chips and it's unclear how 18A stacks up against TSMC's competing technology. The proof will be in the processing, so to speak, when Panther Lake arrives at the end of this year. It's been a long time coming, but no CPU has ever felt as critical for Intel as Panther Lake.

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