ITEM 1. Business
We design and manufacture semiconductors that we sell to electronics designers and manufacturers all over the world. Our operations began in 1930, and we are incorporated in Delaware. With headquarters in Dallas, Texas, we have design, manufacturing or sales operations in more than 30 countries. Our two reportable segments are Analog and Embedded Processing, and we report the results of our remaining business activities in Other. In 2023, we generated $17.52 billion of revenue.
For decades, we have operated with a passion to create a better world by making electronics more affordable through semiconductors. We were pioneers in the transition from vacuum tubes to transistors and then to integrated circuits. As each generation has become more reliable, more affordable and lower in power, semiconductors are used by a growing number of customers and markets. Our passion continues to be alive today as we help our customers develop electronics and new applications, particularly in industrial and automotive markets.
For many years, we have run our business with three overarching ambitions in mind. First, we will act like owners who will own the company for decades. Second, we will adapt and succeed in a world that is ever changing. And third, we will be a company that we are personally proud to be a part of and that we would want as our neighbor. Our ambitions are foundational to ensuring that we operate in a sustainable, socially thoughtful and environmentally responsible manner. When we are successful in achieving these ambitions, our employees, customers, communities and shareholders all win.
As engineers, we are fortunate to work on exciting technology which helps our customers innovate to create a better world. Technology is the foundation of our company, but ultimately, our objective and the best metric for owners to measure our progress is through the growth of free cash flow per share over the long term.
Our strategy to maximize long-term free cash flow per share growth has three elements:
The first element of our strategy is a business model that is focused on analog and embedded processing products and built around four competitive advantages. This business model is the result of a series of strategic decisions made over the years and that continue today. The four sustainable competitive advantages are a strong foundation of manufacturing and technology, a broad portfolio of analog and embedded processing products, the reach of our market channels, and diversity and longevity of our products, markets and customer positions. In combination, these four competitive advantages provide tangible benefits, are difficult to replicate and ultimately separate us from our best peers. Together, these competitive advantages help position TI in a unique class of companies capable of generating and returning significant amounts of cash for our owners. We make our investments with an eye towards long-term strengthening and leveraging of these advantages.
The second element of our strategy to maximize free cash flow per share growth is disciplined allocation of capital. This spans how we select R& D projects, develop new capabilities like TI. com, invest in new manufacturing capacity or how we think about acquisitions and returning cash to our owners. Over a 10-year period from 2014 to 2023, we allocated $94 billion, which reinforces the importance of discipline in capital allocation. The largest allocation over this period was to drive organic growth, which includes investments in R& D, sales and marketing, capital expenditures and working capital for inventory. In this period, we allocated just over $15 billion to capital expenditures. Our increased capital expenditures are to support future revenue growth, which will be a greater component of free cash flow per share growth going forward. Beyond that, we also allocated capital to dividends and share repurchases. Dividends are designed to appeal to a broad set of investors, and share repurchases are made with the goal of the accretive capture of future free cash flow for long-term investors. Lastly, for inorganic growth, we allocate to acquisitions that meet our financial and strategic objectives.
The third element of our strategy is efficiency, which we think of as constantly striving for more output for every dollar spent. This is about getting our investments in the most impactful areas to maximize the growth of long-term free cash flow per share; it is not just about optimizing cost cutting to get to the last dollar of expense. We bring this philosophy of efficiency and continuous improvement to all areas of the company, and this focus on efficiency contributes to revenue growth, improved gross margins, disciplined R& D and SG& A expense, free cash flow margins and ultimately to free cash flow per share growth.
We believe that our business model with the combined effect of our four competitive advantages sets TI apart from our peers and will for a long time to come. We will invest to strengthen our competitive advantages, be disciplined in capital allocation and stay diligent in our pursuit of efficiencies. Finally, we will remain focused on the belief that long-term growth of free cash flow per share is the ultimate measure to generate value.
Product information
Semiconductors are electronic components that serve as the building blocks inside modern electronic systems and equipment. Semiconductors, generally known as "chips," combine multiple transistors to form a complete electronic circuit. We have a diverse product portfolio that is used to accomplish many different things, such as converting and amplifying signals, interfacing with other devices, managing and distributing power, processing data, canceling noise and improving signal resolution. This broad portfolio includes approximately 80,000 products that are integral to almost every type of electronic equipment.
Our segments represent groups of similar products that are combined on the basis of similar design and development requirements, product characteristics, manufacturing processes and distribution channels. Our segments also reflect how management allocates resources and measures results.
Analog
Our Analog segment generated $13.04 billion of revenue in 2023. Analog semiconductors change real-world signals, such as sound, temperature, pressure or images, by conditioning them, amplifying them and often converting them to a stream of digital data that can be processed by other semiconductors, such as embedded processors. Analog semiconductors are also used to manage power in all electronic equipment by converting, distributing, storing, discharging, isolating and measuring electrical energy, whether the equipment is plugged into a wall or using a battery. As the digitization of electronics continues, there is a growing need and opportunity for analog chips to provide the power to run devices and the critical interfaces with human beings, the real world and other electronic devices. Our Analog products are used in many markets, particularly industrial, automotive and personal electronics.
Sales of our Analog products generated about 74% of our revenue in 2023.
Our Analog segment includes the following major product lines: Power and Signal Chain.
Power
Power includes products that help customers manage power in electronic systems. Our broad portfolio is designed to manage power requirements across different voltage levels, including battery-management solutions, DC/DC switching regulators, AC/DC and isolated DC/DC switching regulators, power switches, linear and low-dropout regulators, voltage references and lighting products.
Signal Chain
Signal Chain includes products that sense, condition and measure real-world signals to allow information to be transferred or converted for further processing and control. Our Signal Chain products include amplifiers, data converters, interface products, motor drives, clocks, logic and sensing products.
Embedded Processing
Our Embedded Processing segment generated $3.37 billion of revenue in 2023. Embedded Processing products are the digital "brains" of many types of electronic equipment. They are designed to handle specific tasks and can be optimized for various combinations of performance, power and cost, depending on the application. Our devices vary from simple, low-cost microcontrollers used in applications such as electric toothbrushes to highly specialized, complex devices such as motor control. Our Embedded Processing products are used in many markets, particularly industrial and automotive.
An important characteristic of our Embedded Processing products is that our customers often invest their own R& D to write software that operates on our products. This investment tends to increase the length of our customer relationships because many customers prefer to reuse software from one product generation to the next.
Sales of Embedded Processing products generated about 19% of our revenue in 2023.
Our Embedded Processing segment includes microcontrollers, digital signal processors (DSPs) and applications processors. Microcontrollers are self-contained systems with a processor core, memory and peripherals that are designed to control a set of specific tasks for electronic equipment. DSPs perform mathematical computations almost instantaneously to process or improve digital data. Applications processors are designed for specific computing activity.
Other
We report the results of our remaining business activities in Other, which includes operating segments that do not meet the quantitative thresholds for individually reportable segments and cannot be aggregated with other operating segments. Other generated $1.11 billion of revenue in 2023 and includes revenue from DLP® products (primarily used to project high-definition images), calculators and certain custom semiconductors known as application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs).
In Other, we also include items that are not used in evaluating the results of or in allocating resources to our segments. Examples of these items include acquisition, integration and restructuring charges, as well as certain corporate-level items, such as litigation expenses, environmental costs and gains and losses from other activities, including asset dispositions.
Markets for our products
The table below lists the major markets for our products in 2023 and the estimated percentage of our 2023 revenue that the market represented. The chart also lists, in declining order of our revenue, the sectors within each market.
Market Sector
Industrial Factory automation & control
(40% of TI revenue) Grid infrastructure
Medical
Aerospace & defense
Test & measurement
Building automation
Motor drives
Power delivery
Appliances
Pro audio, video & signage
Industrial transport
Retail automation & payment
Lighting
Automotive Infotainment & cluster
(34% of TI revenue) Hybrid, electric & powertrain systems
Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS)
Body electronics & lighting
Passive safety
Personal electronics Mobile phones
(15% of TI revenue) PC & notebooks
Portable electronics
TV
Connected peripherals & printers
Tablets
Home theater & entertainment
Gaming
Wearables (non-medical)
Data storage
Communications equipment Wireless infrastructure
(5% of TI revenue) Wired networking
Broadband fixed line access
Datacom module
Enterprise systems Data center & enterprise computing
(4% of TI revenue) Enterprise projectors
Enterprise machine
Other (calculators and other)
(2% of TI revenue)
Market characteristics
Competitive landscape
Despite consolidation, the analog and embedded processing markets remain highly fragmented. As a result, we face significant global competition from dozens of large and small companies, including both broad-based suppliers and niche suppliers. Our competitors also include emerging companies, particularly in Asia.
We believe that competitive performance in the semiconductor market generally depends on several factors, including the breadth of a company's product line, the strength and reach of its channels to market, technological innovation, product development execution, technical support, customer service, quality, reliability, price and manufacturing capacity and capabilities. In addition, manufacturing process and package technologies that provide differentiated levels of performance and a structural cost advantage are competitive factors for our analog products, and customers' prior investments in software development is a competitive factor for our embedded processing products.
Market cycle
The "semiconductor cycle" refers to the ebb and flow of supply and demand and the building and depleting of inventories. The semiconductor market historically has been characterized by periods of tight supply caused by strengthening demand and/or insufficient manufacturing capacity, followed by periods of surplus inventory caused by weakening demand and/or excess manufacturing capacity. These are typically referred to as upturns and downturns in the semiconductor cycle. Semiconductor cycles are affected by the significant time and money required to build and maintain semiconductor manufacturing facilities.
Seasonality
Our revenue is subject to some seasonal variation. Historically, our sequential revenue growth rate tends to be weaker in the first and fourth quarters when compared with the second and third quarters.
Customers, sales and distribution
We sell our products to over 100,000 customers. Our customer base is diverse, with more than 40% of our revenue derived from customers outside our largest 100.
We market and sell our products through direct sales channels, including our website and broad sales and marketing team, and, to a lesser extent, through distributors. Over the past several years, we have been investing in new capabilities to build closer direct customer relationships. As a result, in 2023 about 75% of our revenue was direct, which includes TI. com, as customers valued the convenience of purchasing online. Closer direct relationships with our customers help to strengthen our reach of market channel advantage and give us access to more customers and more of their design projects, leading to opportunities to sell more of our products into each design. Additionally, broader and deeper access gives us better insight and knowledge of customer needs.
Our investments in new and improved capabilities to directly support our customers include website and e-commerce enhancements as well as inventory consignment programs and order fulfillment services. Our TI. com e-commerce channel offers a localized online experience in many countries, with convenience features such as immediate availability, local currency, payment methods, invoicing and importer of record. Our new application programming interfaces (APIs) give customers the ability to directly access real-time information about TI products from their own systems, enabling them to purchase available chips immediately to better support their supply needs, reducing cost and delays.
In addition to doing business directly with TI, we offer customers the option of using a single worldwide distributor and a few region-specific distributors for order fulfillment.
Manufacturing
Semiconductor manufacturing begins with a sequence of photolithographic and chemical processing steps that fabricate a number of semiconductor devices on a thin silicon wafer. Each device on the wafer is packaged and tested. The entire process takes place in highly specialized facilities that require substantial investments.
We own and operate semiconductor manufacturing facilities in North America, Asia, Japan and Europe. These include both wafer fabrication and assembly/test facilities.
We invest in manufacturing technologies and do most of our manufacturing in-house. This strategic decision to make manufacturing and technology a core competitive advantage provides us with tangible benefits of lower manufacturing costs and greater control of our supply chain, offering our customers geopolitically dependable capacity. We have focused on creating a competitive manufacturing structural cost advantage by investing in our advanced 300mm capacity. An unpackaged chip built on a 300mm wafer costs about 40% less than an unpackaged chip built on a 200mm wafer.
We continue to invest to strengthen our competitive advantage in manufacturing and technology as part of our long-term capacity plan to meet demand over time. Semiconductor growth in electronics, particularly in industrial and automotive markets, is expected to continue well into the future. Progress and investments include:
• Ramping production in 300mm wafer fabrication facility RFAB2 in Richardson, Texas.
• Ramping production in 300mm wafer fabrication facility LFAB1 in Lehi, Utah.
• Continuing construction on SM1 and SM2 in Sherman, Texas, where we are building four 300mm wafer fabrication facilities.
• Starting construction on LFAB2, another 300mm wafer fabrication facility in Lehi, Utah.
Together, these investments are designed to strengthen our manufacturing and technology competitive advantage, provide us with lower costs and greater control of our supply chain, and support growth over the next 10 to 15 years.
We assess and are careful to address potential health, safety, and environmental risks presented by our operations, including our manufacturing operations. We care for our environment and work to prevent pollution and the potential risks related to climate change. We invest to reduce emissions over the long term in several ways, including installing new factory equipment with state-of-the-art emissions reduction technology, as well as retrofitting existing factory equipment with advanced abatement technology, in addition to using alternative gases and increasing the use of renewable electricity. We also continue to implement practices such as recycling and reusing materials and properly handling hazardous and restricted substances.
We expect to continue to maintain sufficient internal manufacturing capacity to meet the majority of our production needs and to obtain manufacturing equipment to support new technology developments and revenue growth. In 2023, we sourced about 80% of our total wafers and about 65% of our assembly/test production internally. With our planned capacity expansions, we expect these percentages to increase. To supplement our internal manufacturing capacity, we selectively use the capacity of outside suppliers, commonly known as foundries and subcontractors.
Inventory
Our objectives for inventory are to maintain high levels of customer service, maintain dependable and competitive lead times, minimize inventory obsolescence and improve manufacturing asset utilization. To meet these objectives and to allow greater flexibility in periods of high demand, our strategy is to build ahead of demand our broad-based products that are used across a diverse set of applications and customers and have low risk of obsolescence. Inventory levels will vary based on market conditions and seasonality.
Raw materials
We source materials, parts and supplies from a diverse set of suppliers globally. The materials, parts and supplies essential to our business are generally available, and we believe that such materials, parts and supplies will be available in the foreseeable future.
Intellectual property
We own many patents and have many patent applications pending in the United States and other countries in fields relating to our business. We have developed a strong, broad-based patent portfolio and continually add patents to that portfolio. We also have license agreements, which vary in duration, involving rights to our portfolio or those of other companies. We do not consider our business materially dependent upon any one patent or patent license.
Information about our executive officers
The following is an alphabetical list of the names and ages of the executive officers of the company and the positions or offices with the company held by each person named:
Name Age Position
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Ahmad S. Bahai 61 Senior Vice President
Mark S. Gary 49 Senior Vice President
Haviv Ilan 55 Director, President and Chief Executive Officer
Hagop H. Kozanian 41 Senior Vice President
Shanon J. Leonard 48 Senior Vice President
Rafael R. Lizardi 51 Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Mark T. Roberts 48 Senior Vice President
Amichai Ron 46 Senior Vice President
Richard K. Templeton 65 Director and Chairman of the Board
Cynthia Hoff Trochu 60 Senior Vice President, Secretary and General Counsel
Christine A. Witzsche 39 Senior Vice President
Mohammad Yunus 46 Senior Vice President
The term of office of these officers is from the date of their election until their successor shall have been elected and qualified. All have been employees of the company for more than five years. Messrs. Bahai, Ilan, Kozanian, Lizardi and Templeton and Ms. Trochu have served as executive officers of the company for more than five years. Mr. Ron became an executive officer in 2019. Mr. Gary became an executive officer in 2020. Mr. Roberts and Ms. Witzsche became executive officers in 2021. Mr. Leonard became an executive officer in 2022. Mr. Yunus became an executive officer in 2024.
Human capital management
At December 31, 2023, we had about 34,000 employees worldwide. Of those, about 90% were in R& D, sales or manufacturing. Our objective for human capital management is to recruit, develop and retain the best talent possible. As a technology and manufacturing company, our success is grounded in having strong engineering talent and a reliable factory workforce. We have a promote-from-within culture and offer training and rotation programs that provide the opportunity to quickly gain experience in different areas. In 2023, our turnover rate was 8.1%.
It is important that our employees represent a mix of experiences and backgrounds in order to make our company stronger, more innovative and more inclusive. Inclusion is one of our core values, and we have programs in place to promote diversity and inclusion. We encourage you to review our Corporate Citizenship Report for more information. Nothing in the Corporate Citizenship Report shall be deemed incorporated by reference into this report.
Available information
Our internet address is www. ti. com. Information on our website is not part of this report. We make available free of charge through our Investor Relations website our reports on Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K, and amendments to those reports, as soon as reasonably practicable after they are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Also available through the TI Investor Relations website are reports filed by our directors and executive officers on Forms 3, 4 and 5, and amendments to those reports.
Available on our website at www. ti. com/corporategovernance: (i) our Corporate Governance Guidelines; (ii) charters for the Audit, Compensation, and Governance and Stockholder Relations Committees of our board of directors; (iii) our code of conduct; and (iv) our Code of Ethics for TI Chief Executive Officer and Senior Finance Officers. Stockholders may request copies of these documents free of charge by writing to Texas Instruments Incorporated, Attention: Investor Relations, P. O. Box 660199, MS 8657, Dallas, Texas, 75266-0199.
ITEM 1A. Risk factors