Texas has a new boast.
Oklahoma’s neighbor to the south has become the silicon state of the nation.
A recent report in the Texas Tribune stated Texas leads the nation in exports of semiconductor chips, the small pieces that form the building blocks of all modern electronics, and the industry is currently experiencing a boom.
Want proof? A total of 57 individual semiconductor facilities are operating or being built in the state, representing more than 47,000 workers across semiconductor fabrication plants, materials manufacturing and research and development, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association.
Thanks to federal investment and the boom in data centers being built in Texas, a series of new or expanded semiconductor fabrication plants is underway, reported the Tribune. It cited the launch of Texas Instruments’ $40 billion semiconductor facility in Sherman late last year, Nvidia and Winstrom Corporation’s plans for two facilities in north Fort Worth and Elon Musk’s massive “Terafab” semiconductor mega facility proposed in Grimes County.
The Tribune spoke with Steve Putna, director of Texas A&M’s Semiconductor Institute.
“It seems unprecedented relative to what I have seen since I got into the business in 1998. I think this ecosystem has been significantly replenished as a result of all the incentive funding we’ve seen.”
As the paper reported, the semiconductor institute, which broke ground on a $226 million research and development facility in Bryan in April, is part of the state’s $1.5 billion Texas CHIPS Act, passed in 2023, to incentivize new semiconductor manufacturing in Texas as well as the research and workforce development that goes into it at the state’s universities. From the law, Texas A&M University received the funding for the center and the University of Texas at Austin received $440 million for its own research and development center.
