DigiTimes 综述德州仪器Q3财报电话会：工业/汽车/数据中心需求强劲、供应偏紧，系会后旧闻无新增事实

Texas Instruments reported strong revenue growth in its third-quarter earnings call due to strong demand across its industrial, automotive, and data center businesses. The company said it is facing a tight supply environment for its chips, but brought up its ramping of production and testing capacity, including through its new Malaysia back-end facility.

The company's gross margin rose 2.8 percentage points sequentially in the third quarter. The company attributed this to higher revenue overall, as well as pricing, factory loadings, and the product and end market mix.
It saw strong demand across its industrial, automotive, and data center business areas, as well as broad growth across regions and sectors. This may put pressure on its lead times, but the company emphasized that this is a relative area of strength due to its investments in inventory and capacity expansion.
Texas Instruments CEO Haviv Ilan noted the industry's limited investment in expanding analog chip capacity outside China and Taiwan over the four years since the pandemic-era market peak, which is contributing to the tight supply environment today. He added that the company is well-placed to meet this demand, particularly for customers concerned about the geopolitical stability of supply chains in China or Taiwan.
Pricing remained largely flat in the first half of 2026. The company noted that pricing is typically done once a year, but that some customers' calls for urgent orders had resulted in a small uptick in pricing during the second half. It is currently in price discussions with customers for 2027, which may result in some price changes.
When asked about its strong fourth-quarter outlook during what is usually a weaker season, Ilan cited rapid growth in the data center market that he believes is not affected by seasonality. Strong momentum in its industrial business, including in aerospace and robotics, is also shaping its positive forecast for the next quarter.
He said that the company's capex for this year is expected to hit between US$2 billion and US$3 billion, depending on lead times from tool suppliers. Equipment lead times were said to have become very long, which could influence the 2027 capex as well. Ilan declined to give figures for next year's capital spending, but said that the company will talk more about it in its February capital management call.
Data centers, industrial users, and cars
Texas Instruments' industrial revenue surged more than 40% compared to the year before, driven by rising demand for better precision, speed, quality, and output in machinery, according to the company. This is resulting in a higher need for "content" per system that benefits its chip sales.
The company recorded revenue growth from the automotive sector of about 10% sequentially and a mid-teens percentage annually in the third quarter. EV-related sales, including in powertrain and hybrid systems, grew twice as fast as overall automotive demand, and orders ticked higher in the China and US markets.
It said that this could possibly be due to customers keeping inventory levels low, which left them unprepared for rising fuel prices to boost EV demand. While Texas Instruments is now helping them to ramp production, this process was said to require some time, particularly if customer demands are unique.
Data centers were also an area of growth. Texas Instruments' foundational analog and embedded chips are all used in the power supply of data centers. The proliferation of data centers may be influencing its industrial business areas, such as its energy-related sales, but the company noted that the need to update electricity grids also supports markets like physical AI.
Capacity ramps to meet rising demand
Regarding its embedded business, Ilan said that the company has room for more capacity through its spare cleanroom space in the Lehi 1 fab and the upcoming Lehi 2, although he noted that the embedded business had peaked in 2023, a year after TI's analog business. He also noted plans to transfer Silicon Labs' outsourced production into Lehi following the acquisition.
Ilan said that the company is struggling to obtain the volume it needs from outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) providers, and is ramping up its newly built assembly and testing site in Malaysia. He added that the facility is ramping up quickly, and that combining backend and frontend capabilities will allow the company more control of its output.