DALLAS -- Texas Instruments Inc. today announced a new strategy to cut delivery times on high-volume standard logic devices from what TI said is an industry practice of eight-week turnaround cycles to two weeks.
To reduce the delivery times of standard logic devices, TI said it has made "significant investments" in inventory in order to improve availability--irrespective of current market conditions.
The announcement comes after other logic chip suppliers--such as rival Fairchild Semiconductor International Inc.--have announced efforts to expedite delivery of standard products to customers around the world. Many of these programs have been launched while inventories remain full after the 2001 downturn and glut of capacity, but some IC suppliers are promising shorter cycle-time deliveries to customers when the upturn starts.
"We know our customers care about availability, and we are doing something about it," said Steve Hanke, worldwide director of marketing for TI's Standard Linear and Logic Group.
TI's targeted devices under this new delivery strategy make up 80% of its logic unit volume, according to the Dallas-based company. These building-block logic ICs include "Little Logic" devices and functions in TI's LVC, HC, CD4K, AHC, LVT, and ABT technologies.
"This move insures customers that logic is within easy reach," Hanke said. "If a customer needs logic devices inside of two weeks, we want them to give Texas Instruments a call. We want them to know that while we still would like as much visibility as possible into future demands, we stand ready to support very near-term flexibility and are making the investment to do so."
Last month, Fairchild Semiconductor in South Portland, Maine, announced a new inventory program, called Direct Ship Plus, which the company said will streamline the supply chain and minimize the warehousing of products. Fairchild said the program will enable its customers to place a "pull order" from any location worldwide and be assured the product is available and will arrive in three days or less (see March 7 story).
Fairchild also announced its first fully-automated logistics warehouse--a $13 million facility--in South Korea. The 164,000-square-foot facility will be run by robots and automated storage retrieval systems to handle up to 150,000 product shipments to customers in the Northeast Asia region each quarter (see March 13 story).
TI did not release an estimate on its inventory investment for faster delivery of logic devices.
