

Five IC makers join $3B 'capex club' - NonEUCitizen
http://eetimes.com/electronics-news/4212394/Five-IC-makers-join--3B--capex-club--

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jcr
It is very interesting to see TI scaling back 25%, particularly with their
OMAP 4 processors being in demand. I wonder what the reason is?

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imr
TI may be scaling back due to the costs of keeping up. It would not be
unexpected for them to go fabless. The thinking is that 3 organizations will
continue manufacturing logic chips: Intel, TSMC, and GlobalFoundries.

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jcr
Oddly enough my PandaBoard (TI OMAP 4) arrived today... but it was ordered
back at the start of November. I actually called the manufacturer that
supplies Digi-Key to figure out what was going on after two successive 1 month
delivery slips from Digi-Key.

For all intents and purposes, the PandaBoard is basically the prototype for
the OMAP 4 chip, save for the obvious fact TI did not build it. It seems TI
has no interest in providing an "official" development platform, and most
likely because others were willing to build them for free (to TI).

Even with this outside help, TI has had problems keeping component delivery
dates with the folks building the PandaBoards. Though I haven't heard any
"verifiable rumors" (assuming there is such a thing), my guess is TI is having
fab process and yield problems on the OMAP lines. The really troubling thing
is, those kind of problems are usually solved by _more_ fab investment, rather
than less.

