Texas Instruments (TI) recently laid off a chip design team in Beijing. It is understood that this Beijing team of TI is mainly responsible for the development of low-end power chips, with a team size of about 50 people.
Sources familiar with the matter indicated that TI’s layoffs may be influenced by sluggish demand in the overall consumer market; on the other hand, domestic factors including internal competition such as power chip industry have also prompted TI to make this decision; furthermore, the impact of current US-China relations has ultimately led TI down this path.
As a giant in the field of analog chips, TI has not been doing well recently. The company’s CEO bluntly stated at last month’s financial report meeting: ‘This quarter, the industrial sector of the company is increasingly weak, while the automotive industry continues to decline.’
TI’s Chief Financial Officer Raphael Lazardi pointed out in an interview that the recent economic downturn is different from the past. He said that various industries have experienced declines at different time periods.
In terms of China, TI’s overall business is also facing challenges as mentioned earlier. Under these influences, TI made the decision to relocate its MCU team to India as early as two years ago.
From the development of the past few years, it seems that TI’s approach is not an isolated case. Taking chip giant Qualcomm as an example, there was news last year that they had removed their domestic WiFi chip team and shifted focus to India. Although Qualcomm did not respond directly to this matter, executives of the company mentioned in a recent interview that they will double their investment in India for chip research and development. This indirectly proves their gradual departure from China towards India.
Other American chip companies like AMD and Marvell are also gradually reducing their investments in China, and are instead turning to neighboring countries such as India, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand.
SEE ALSO: Texas Instruments Lays Off Its MCU Team in China
To be honest, over the past few years, the development of China’s chip industry has greatly benefited from the research and development centers established by these foreign companies in China. However, their collective departure this time has sounded an alarm for us.
For the domestic chip industry, the departure of these companies is a mixed bag. From an optimistic perspective, their departure leaves behind vast space, creating new opportunities for everyone. However, from a pessimistic viewpoint, without the leading experience, processes guidance or even talent training from these internationally leading enterprises, the impact on the development of domestic chips remains unknown.
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