Dallas, Texas-based Texas Instruments Inc. announced Feb. 15 it would be investing in a major expansion of their microchip manufacturing facility in Lehi, Utah. 

The Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity and the Economic Development Corp. of Utah (EDC Utah), which helped develop a package of post-performance tax incentives of up to 30% from the state, says TI agreed to capital expenditures of $11 billion and to creating at least 800 new, mostly high-tech jobs over the next 20 years.  

Boise, Idaho-based Micron Technologies originally built the Lehi semiconductor chip fabrication plant, known in the industry as a “fab,” in Lehi in the late 1990s. Micron sold the entire facility and surrounding undeveloped property to TI in 2021 for $900 million. Consisting of several buildings with a total of 2 million sq ft of manufacturing space, TI renovated the buildings for production of its latest generation of 300-mm semiconductor wafers that are sold to manufacturers around the world for use in automotive, industrial, communications, personal electronics and other products. 

The new facility will be built next to the existing fab, and they will operate in tandem.  

“Our decision to build a second fab in Lehi underscores our commitment to Utah and is a testament to the talented team there who will lay the groundwork for another important chapter in TI’s future,” said Haviv Ilan, firm executive vice president and chief operating officer, and incoming president and chief executive officer in a press release announcing the project. “With the anticipated growth of semiconductors in electronics, particularly in industrial and automotive, and the passage of the CHIPS and Science Act, there is no better time to further invest in our internal manufacturing capacity.”

Colby Cooley, vice president of business development for EDC Utah says TI officials had been in contact with the state about the possibility of expansion shortly after the initial purchase of the Lehi plant.

“They approached us when they made the acquisition of the facility and then they contacted us again last fall and that’s when we really got going on the process,” Cooley says. “But what really drove this was the approval of the CHIPS Act.”

TI and Utah officials did not comment on when design and construction of the new facility might begin but Cooley noted that in order to qualify for funding from the CHIPS Act applicants needed to show substantial commitment to building a new facility.  

Ryan Starks, executive director of the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity, says it is his understanding TI is currently in the design phase of the project, “and they said they want to be aggressive with their expansion,” he adds.