Texas Instruments breaks ground on new semiconductor factory in Lehi
Facility has plans for greater water conservation and sustainability
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- Texas Instruments manufacturing technicians, foreground, don full suits, gloves and glasses and sanitize all belongings in preparation of entering the clean room to begin work Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. As part of a celebration marking the groundbreaking of the company’s new production plant, the Daily Herald was given a tour of the existing facility. The clean room is a highly sanitized room where the production of semiconductor chips takes place.
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- Texas Instruments’ first semiconductor wafer fabrication plant provides 1,100 jobs to Utahns. The company’s second plant will be connected to the existing facility and will provide 800 more jobs in addition to thousands of indirect jobs. A groundbreaking for the new plant was held Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023, in Lehi.
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- Utah Gov. Spencer Cox speaks to those attending the groundbreaking for Texas Instruments’ new 300 millimeter semiconductor wafer fabrication plant in Lehi on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. The new plant will be the company’s second in Lehi and will connect to the existing facility.
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- Brian Dunlap, vice president over 300 millimeter wafer fab manufacturing operations for Texas Instruments, shows the Daily Herald how a semiconductor microchip is created, during a tour of the company’s wafer fabrication plant in Lehi on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. Using these wafers makes the production of semiconductors more efficient and cost effective, he said.
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- Lehi Mayor Mark Johnson speaks via video to those attending the groundbreaking of Texas Instruments’ new 300 millimeter semiconductor wafer fabrication plant in Lehi on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023.
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- Attendees applaud after the speakers talk about the importance of Texas Instruments’ new 300 millimeter semiconductor wafer fabrication plant in Lehi during a groundbreaking ceremony on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. Speaking at the event were Haviv Ilan, president and CEO of Texas Instruments; Utah Gov. Spencer Cox; Mayor Mark Johnson; and Shane Farnsworth, superintendent of Alpine School District.
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- Leaders of Texas Instruments, state and local officials, and leaders of Alpine School District break ground on Texas Instruments’ new 300 millimeter semiconductor wafer fabrication plant in Lehi on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. The new facility will provide 800 jobs to local Utahns.
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- Haviv Ilan, president and CEO of Texas Instruments, speaks at the groundbreaking of the company’s second 300 millimeter semiconductor wafer fabrication plant in Lehi on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. He also announced a $9 million investment into Alpine School District to develop a STEM learning community for grades K-12.
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- Texas Instruments manufacturing technicians move about the clean room to perform preventative maintenance to support the production and manufacturing of semiconductor chips inside the company’s semiconductor wafer fabrication plant in Lehi on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. The clean room is a highly sanitized room where the production of semiconductor chips takes place.
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- Shane Farnsworth, superintendent of Alpine School District, expresses his gratitude to Texas Instruments for the company’s $9 million investment to develop a STEM program for all students in grades K-12. His remarks came during the groundbreaking of the company’s new 300 millimeter semiconductor wafer fabrication plant in Lehi on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023.
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- A Texas Instruments manufacturing technician sanitizes his laptop and bag in preparation of entering the clean room to begin work at the company’s semiconductor wafer fabrication plant in Lehi on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. The clean room is a highly sanitized room where the production of semiconductor chips takes place.
Semiconductor microchips affect every facet of modern life because they are in almost everything people use daily, such as cellphones, computers, refrigerators, toasters, washing machines, TVs, LED bulbs and much more.
Last year, the federal CHIPS and Science Act was passed to boost research and manufacturing of semiconductors in the U.S. Now, just over a year after the legislation was passed, Texas Instruments, a semiconductor company, broke ground on Thursday for its new 300 millimeter semiconductor wafer fabrication plant in Lehi.
The groundbreaking followed speeches by Haviv Ilan, president and CEO of Texas Instruments; Utah Gov. Spencer Cox; Lehi Mayor Mark Johnson on video; and Shane Farnsworth, superintendent of Alpine School District.
“The federal CHIPS Act has played a role in helping more of this type of fabrication manufacturing move from overseas back to the United States, and we feel very fortunate that Utah is able to participate here,” Cox said.
Texas Instruments’ investment of $11 billion in this factory is the largest private economic investment in the history of Utah, and as announced Thursday, the company will be investing $9 million into ASD, which is the largest investment the school district has ever received.
“Everything now has chips in them and and so we know this is important,” Cox said, “and to have a state-of-the-art facility like this that will be able to produce tens of millions of chips every day is truly remarkable and positions Utah and the United States as a global leader in this important industry.” He added the new facility will also help address shortages in the U.S. as well as helping with supply chain issues and global unrest.
Brian Dunlap, vice president over 300 mm wafer fab manufacturing operations, explained to the Daily Herald that during the COVID-19 pandemic is when the necessity of microchip and semiconductor factories was realized. With the shortage of medical ventilators and the amount of people working from home, microchips were essential to the function of daily life, he said. So when shortages began, Texas Instruments began finding ways to execute the materials faster to supply ventilators and other needed items at the time.
“It really kind of created this purpose of, ‘Oh hey, what we do is really really significant for the world,'” Dunlap said.
The new fabrication plant is the second Texas Instruments fabrication plant in Lehi. The existing TI semiconductor facility is called LFAB1 — the “L” stands for Lehi — and will be connected to the new facility, called LFAB2. As stated in a press release, the first production at LFAB2 could begin by 2026.
Jobs for local Utahns
Texas Instruments’ investment will provide 800 additional jobs for Utahns, adding to the existing 1,100 employees currently working at LFAB1. LFAB2, which will be connected to LFAB1, will also provide thousands of indirect jobs.
The $9 million invested in ASD will be used to create a STEM learning community for all students grades K-12, thus helping raise up future engineers and technicians to fill jobs in the future, Ilan said.
“This will be a multiyear program that will embed science, technology, engineering and math concepts into the district’s coursework at all grade levels,” he said. “The program will provide STEM-oriented professional development for teachers and administrators, helping develop a strong future workforce here in Utah.”
Added Farnsworth, “As with the arts, STEM-informed learning environments and instructional strategies foster greater levels of student engagement, teacher efficacy and authentic learning.” The investment will provide STEM opportunities and resources to students and teachers. Farnsworth continued, “We are firm in our resolve to push these resources to the classroom level where they will make the most significant impact.”
The STEM program will raise up “future engineers that hopefully will develop the next technologies for Texas Instruments, for the U.S. and for the world. So we are excited about that,” Ilan told the media Thursday.
“As a state, we have a duty to make sure that we’re educating our next generation for the jobs of the future, and you’re going to see more of an investment … from the state with our institutions of higher learning, with our trade technical institutions here in Utah as well, and investment in our people to make sure that … they can fill those jobs so that we don’t have to look outside the state to bring talent in to fill those jobs,” Cox said. “We want to up-skill employees who maybe have jobs in the area but could have jobs that pay more. One of the cool things about this investment is these are really high-paying jobs. These are great jobs for people.”
The 800 positions average a yearly salary of $110,000 including benefits.
During a tour of the facility, the Daily Herald was shown what is called the “clean room,” a highly sanitized area where the semiconductors are created. Dunlap explained the production of the chips is done by machines, so the jobs at the facility are mainly technicians who support tool maintenance and material disposition. There are also engineers who provide the structure and discipline of how the technicians execute what is done in the plant.
Sustainability a priority
“Texas Instruments Incorporated is a global semiconductor company that designs, manufactures, tests and sells analog and embedded processing chips for markets such as industrial, automotive, personal electronics, communications equipment and enterprise systems,” stated the press release for the groundbreaking.
According to Ilan, Texas Instruments uses 300 mm manufacturing, which creates the microchips in an efficient and cost-effective way, aligning with the company’s passion “to create a better world by making electronics more affordable through semiconductors,” he said at the groundbreaking.
Not only is the company focused on the affordability of electronics through its production process, but is also reportedly is making changes in LFAB2 to become more sustainable.
With a long history of droughts, Utah is always preparing for the next one, meaning cities must use water wisely, according to the Utah Department of Natural Resources.
The Deseret News reported in 2018 that Utahns used 242 gallons of water per day per person on average.
Semiconductor Digest, a trade publication, reported that semiconductor fabrication plants can use tens of millions of gallons of water every day. One article stated, “To put this into perspective, average water usage in the U.S. is about 82 gallons (310 liters) per person per day, making 10 million gallons equivalent to the daily household water consumption of a small city (population 122,000).”
According to the Texas Instruments press release, “LFAB2 has a goal to be powered by 100% renewable electricity, and advanced 300-mm equipment and processes in Lehi will further reduce waste, water and energy consumption. In fact, LFAB2 is expected to recycle water at nearly twice the rate of TI’s existing fab in Lehi.”
Ilan explained to the Daily Herald that while it would be difficult to change the manufacturing process of LFAB1 to make it more sustainable and better conserve water, LFAB2 will have an output of two and a half to three times that of LFAB1. As the output will be greater in the new facility, which focuses more on conserving water and sustainability as a whole, he said, “Most of the investment here will run very efficiently in terms of water and 100% renewable energy, which is also very important to our future.”
On Nov. 1, the Utah Department of Natural Resources reported, “Last year 52% of the state was in ‘extreme’ drought. Today, we don’t have anywhere in the ‘extreme’ drought category, and just 7% is ‘moderately dry,’ and 73% isn’t experiencing any drought.”
Cox said there have been discussions with Texas Instruments from the beginning about water resources to ensure the water was available and that the company would use as little of it as possible. “I would stand this up as an example for the future of the state that when companies want to come to Utah or want to expand here in Utah, you have to come to the table with real solutions to make sure that we’re using less water and we’re being more responsible,” he said. “Because it doesn’t matter if we have great jobs in the future. If we don’t have anything to drink, it’s not going to be much fun.”
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