The Biden administration will award up to $1.6 billion in grants to Texas Instruments to help the company build three new manufacturing plants, the latest in a slew of awards intended to ramp up the nation’s production of semiconductors.
The funds will help the Dallas-based company construct two plants in Sherman, Texas, and a facility in Lehi, Utah, Commerce Department officials announced on Friday. The grant is meant to strengthen the domestic supply of semiconductors, the tiny chips that are key components of electronic devices.
The investment will “advance U.S. economic security and mitigate those same supply chain vulnerabilities that were brought to light during the pandemic,” said Laurie E. Locascio, the under secretary of commerce for standards and technology, during a call with reporters on Thursday night.
In addition to the grant, the department will award up to $3 billion in loans to Texas Instruments, officials said. The company is also expected to claim federal tax credits that could cover 25 percent of the cost of building and outfitting factories with production equipment. The funds will support the company’s investment of more than $18 billion to construct the new facilities, officials said.
The funding comes from the CHIPS Act, which passed Congress with bipartisan support in 2022. The legislation was intended to bolster the domestic production of semiconductors and reduce the nation’s dependence on Asian countries for them. Only about 10 percent of the world’s semiconductors are manufactured in the United States, down from about 37 percent in 1990.
Ramping up domestic chip manufacturing has been a major goal for President Biden, whose economic policy agenda focuses in part on boosting American manufacturing and bringing back jobs that have moved overseas in recent decades.
