Recently, it was reported that Texas Instruments, the world’s largest analog chip manufacturer, has laid off its MCU R&D team in China. It is said that all members of the team are currently distributed to other product lines, and nominal positions and salaries remain unchanged.
Industry insiders pointed out that Texas Instruments’ MCU R&D center in Shanghai was established at the end of 2011, and it has been more than 10 years now. In the early stage, this center mainly developed products for low-power applications in China (such as fire smoke detectors, air conditioner remote controls, etc.), and also launched a good MSP430 product. But then moved to the design of Arm cores, which seemed less successful.
Fang Jing, chief analyst of Minsheng Securities Electronics, said that TI’s MCU team used to be one of the best product lines for localized operations. Based on the Chinese market, it specialized in local customized development, and customers responded very quickly. However, since the beginning of 2018, the market has gradually been taken over by new domestic MCU manufacturers, and the living space has been squeezed.
However, Texas Instruments announced on May 8 that Texas Instruments China has not laid off any employees; and said that China is the most important market in the world, and it will continue to invest in the Chinese market and fulfill its commitments.
Some netizens did not buy this statement, saying that Texas Instruments did not lay off employees, but abolished the team. The truth remains to be seen.
Texas Instruments is the leader in analog chips. Analog chips are the bridge between the real world and the digital world. Only after the analog signal in nature is processed by the analog chip, can it be processed in the digital chip, such as CPU, memory, microprocessor, etc., and then through the analog chip to feedback and adjust the real world.
The “chip shortage” continues, and global politics and economy are deeply affected. Only by reducing their dependence on foreign chip manufacturers can Chinese manufacturers get rid of the embarrassment of being “stuck in the neck”. In January of this year, the news of the US memory chip company Micron laying off the Chinese team also caused a lot of discussion in the industry. On January 25, Micron disbanded the DRAM design team of the Shanghai R&D Center with more than 100 people, and provided some core R&D personnel with the option of technical immigration to the United States. Subsequently, Micron responded that its DRAM engineering team decided to withdraw from the Shanghai Design Center, and the related transition work is expected to be completed by December 2022.
There is still a gap in the development of domestic chips compared with overseas, but this gap is narrowing. Shengbang, known as the leader of domestic analog chips, achieved a record high in Q1 in 2022, and analog IC manufacturers such as Awinic Electronics and Lixin Micro successfully landed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board. Chinese companies such as Changjiang Storage and Changxin Storage are actively increasing their NAND and DRAM memory chip production capacity to reduce their reliance on foreign technology and supplies.
Leifeng.com
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