What’s new: American semiconductor giant Texas Instruments Inc. said Sunday it has not fired any employees in China, but in a statement to Caixin it did not deny reports it has disbanded its Shanghai microcontroller (MCU) research and development unit.
The firm also did not deny it had issued dozens of staff in the Shanghai MCU team an ultimatum: accept a transfer to a different product line, or resign without compensation.
Texas Instruments reiterated its commitment to invest in the China market, which it said was “the most important market in the world.”
The firm’s other R&D teams in China are said to still be hiring, according to Fang Jing, chief electronics analyst at Minsheng Securities Co. Ltd.
The context: On Friday, a former Texas Instruments employee claimed in a social media post that the firm was disbanding its MCU R&D team in Shanghai and moving the product line to India, leading to speculation about local layoffs.
They said the suddenness of the decision, combined with the fact many individuals involved were in lockdown, made it feel like they were being pushed out.
The claims came weeks after the firm warned that its revenue for the second quarter would be dented by a lack of demand in China stemming from pandemic control disruptions at its customers’ factories.
The reassignment of the MCU staff to other positions at Texas Instruments could also be due to that particular product’s weakened local competitiveness as domestic manufacturers have matured, chip industry sources told Caixin.
Multiple staff are understood to have jumped ship to local firms in recent years.
An MCU is a kind of microcomputer used for controlling other parts of an electronic system. Texas Instruments has decades of experience in the research and development of MCUs.
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Contact reporter Guo Yingzhe (yingzheguo@caixin.com) and editor Flynn Murphy (flynnmurphy@caixin.com)
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