I completely understand your feelings. Comparing Texas Instruments (TI) to a “giant aircraft carrier of AI” while other chip companies (including domestic manufacturers) are likened to “destroyers and attack fleets” is a very vivid metaphor that indeed reveals the current competitive landscape and reality gap in the global analog chip industry. Texas Instruments (TI) holds a position in the analog chip field akin to that of a giant aircraft carrier at sea: it is massive, self-sufficient (IDM model), well-equipped (with over 80,000 products), capable of long-term ocean operations (with extremely long product lifecycles), and able to support the entire fleet. In contrast, most Chinese analog chip companies still resemble destroyers or frigates: they are more agile, focused on specific areas, and perform brilliantly on localized battlefields, but there is still a significant gap in overall strength, risk resistance, and global influence compared to giants like TI. To illustrate this gap more intuitively, I have compiled a comparison table:
Comparison Dimension | Texas Instruments (TI) – “Giant Aircraft Carrier” | Leading Chinese Analog Companies (e.g., Sanken, Naxinwei, etc.) – “Elite Fleet”
Product Breadth and Depth | Approximately 80,000 products covering almost all categories of analog chips, with deep depth. | Sanken has over 5,200 products, while other companies have hundreds to over a thousand, focusing on niche areas.
Technical Barriers and Models | IDM model (independent design, manufacturing, packaging, and testing), mastering core processes and costs, with over 90 years of technical accumulation. | Mostly Fabless model (no wafer fabrication), relying on foundries; however, they are striving to enhance self-research capabilities, with some areas (like Naxinwei’s isolation chips) achieving over 60% domestic market share.
Ecological and Customer Binding | “One-stop” shopping, customers rely on its complete solutions, with extremely high switching costs and solid ecological barriers. | Starting from “replacing one chip with another,” gradually gaining customer validation, especially breaking through in automotive electronics (e.g., BYD, Geely supply chains).
Profitability and Stability | Strong and stable profitability, with some products having lifecycles lasting 10 years or even longer. | Some companies have achieved profitability (like Sanken), but many still face pressure on gross margins and continuous R&D investment.
Global Influence | A true global giant, with a market share consistently at the top (around 19%), with a supply chain spanning the globe. | Major markets are still in China, rapidly growing through domestic substitution, but global market share remains low (China’s analog chip self-sufficiency rate is about 16%-20%).
——🧭 The Path for Chinese Analog Chips to Breakthrough
Recognizing the gap is the first step; more importantly, how to act. The Chinese analog chip industry is striving to catch up on multiple fronts, attempting to upgrade from “destroyers” to future “aircraft carrier battle groups”:
1. 🚀 Focus on advantageous tracks to achieve breakthroughs: This is the most realistic path currently. China has the world’s largest markets for new energy vehicles, consumer electronics, and industrial applications, providing excellent testing grounds and application scenarios for analog chip companies. They are concentrating their efforts on breakthroughs in specific areas such as fast charging (e.g., Nanchip Technology), digital isolators (e.g., Naxinwei), signal chains (e.g., Sirepu), and power management (e.g., Sanken), gradually breaking overseas monopolies and successfully entering the supply chains of leading customers like BYD, Geely, and Huawei.
2. 💡 Enhance the “gold content” of technology and tackle high-end markets: Companies are no longer satisfied with low to mid-end replacements but are actively moving into high value-added areas. Automotive-grade chips are one of the main attack directions, with Naxinwei having over 40 products certified by AEC-Q100, significantly increasing its automotive electronics revenue share; Sirepu has also launched automotive-grade CAN transceivers. Additionally, in high-end fields such as AI server power management (e.g., Sanken, Xidiwei) and high-precision signal chains, domestic companies are accelerating R&D and introduction.
3. 🤝 Industry chain collaboration to build a “big ecosystem”: The development of analog chips relies on support from upstream and downstream in the industry chain. Domestically, there is a rapid construction of a self-sufficient industry chain from EDA tools, wafer manufacturing (e.g., Yandong Micro) to packaging and testing. At the same time, through mergers and acquisitions (e.g., Naxinwei acquiring Meigen to strengthen its magnetic sensor business), they are quickly acquiring technology and talent.
4. 🌍 Moving from “domestic substitution” to “global competition”: Some leading companies are no longer satisfied with the domestic market and are beginning to compete overseas. Sanken has established a production base in Thailand, aiming to increase its overseas revenue share from 10% to 25%. Although the process is long, it is undoubtedly a necessary path to maturity.
——💎 Summary
So, your observation is very accurate: Texas Instruments (TI) is undoubtedly the “giant aircraft carrier” in the analog chip field, and its position is difficult to shake in the short term. The Chinese analog chip industry is indeed still in the “destroyer” stage, with no single company able to compete with TI’s comprehensive strength. However, we also see positive changes: Chinese analog chip companies are like an “elite fleet”; they are agile, focused, and growing rapidly. They have adopted a very pragmatic strategy—rather than directly attacking all of TI’s positions, they choose to break through in key areas, leveraging local market advantages to gradually accumulate technology and experience. This path is destined to be long and full of challenges, requiring continuous R&D investment, collaborative development of the industry chain, and the passage of time. But importantly, this “fleet” has already set sail and has achieved results in some important “local seas.” True competition is not about sinking the aircraft carrier but about continuously expanding one’s fleet to ultimately secure an indispensable place in the vast ocean.
For the Chinese analog chip industry, this requires patience, strategy, and persistent effort. I understand your point. Your metaphor of “aircraft carrier” and “fighter jet” is very precise; Texas Instruments (TI) indeed resembles a giant aircraft carrier in the semiconductor industry, providing indispensable foundational support and endurance for the entire industry. Companies focused on CPUs, GPUs, and other areas are like high-performance fighter jets that, while powerful, would significantly lose their operational radius and endurance without the underlying support. To clarify TI’s “aircraft carrier” role and how it supports other “fighter jet” companies, I have organized another comparison table:
Dimension | Texas Instruments (TI) – “Industry Aircraft Carrier” | Other Chip Companies (e.g., NVIDIA/Intel) – “High-Performance Fighter Jets”
Core Functions | Provides foundational support: power management, signal conversion, sensor control | Provides cutting-edge computing power: high-speed computing, graphics processing, artificial intelligence
Product Characteristics | Extremely diverse (over 80,000 products), long lifecycle (10-20 years), high reliability | Fast iteration speed, pursuit of extreme performance, focus on specific areas
Business Model | IDM model: controlling the entire chain of design, manufacturing, packaging, and testing, self-controllable | Mostly Fabless model: focusing on design, relying on foundries like TSMC
Ecological Role | The foundational cornerstone: providing “blood” and “senses” for all electronic systems | Top-level applications: providing “brains” and “engines” for specific computing tasks
Main Challenges | Long technical accumulation cycle, extremely high requirements for process stability, huge capital investment | High costs of process competition, high barriers to ecosystem construction (e.g., CUDA), intense market competition
🧭 How TI Plays the “Aircraft Carrier” Role
Texas Instruments, as an “industry aircraft carrier,” primarily supports the entire semiconductor industry through the following aspects:
1. 🛡️ Providing stable “supply” and “endurance”: TI’s power management chips are like the “power cabin” and “fuel system” of the entire electronic system. Whether for mobile phones, data center servers, or automobiles, all devices require stable and efficient power supply. TI’s power management chips (PMICs), voltage regulators (LDOs), DC-DC converters, etc., ensure the “endurance” of these devices. Without TI’s stable and efficient “supply,” other chips may not function properly or achieve their full performance.
2. 🌉 Building critical “connection bridges”: TI’s signal chain chips (such as ADC/DAC, operational amplifiers, interface chips) serve as the bridge and deck connecting the “analog world” and the “digital world.” The real world is analog (sound, light, temperature), while the computing world is digital (0s and 1s). Fighter jets (CPUs/GPUs) process digital signals but need TI’s chips to first convert analog signals into digital signals, and then convert them back to drive actuators. Without this bridge, even the most powerful computing power cannot interact with the real world.
3. ⚓ Creating a robust “manufacturing deck”: TI’s IDM model (integrated device manufacturing) means it owns its own wafer fabrication and packaging facilities. This is like an aircraft carrier having its own shipyard and repair workshop, allowing it to control capacity, costs, and quality independently. Especially during times of industry capacity tightness, this self-sufficiency becomes crucial, providing a ballast for the stability of the entire industry.
4. 🤝 Building a vast “ecosystem”: TI has an extremely large customer base (over 100,000) and product line (over 80,000), penetrating almost all fields including industrial, automotive, and consumer electronics. This pervasive penetration makes it a foundational node and connector in the entire electronic industry ecosystem. The design and manufacturing of many end products revolve around TI’s chips, forming strong ecological stickiness.
🚀 The Symbiotic Relationship Between “Fighter Jets” and “Aircraft Carriers”
The “other chip companies” you mentioned, such as:
• NVIDIA: is like the most advanced stealth fighter jet, focusing on providing extremely strong AI computing power and graphics processing capabilities.
• Intel/AMD: are like main fighter jets, providing general high-performance computing cores.
These “fighter jets”‘ exceptional performance indeed relies on the foundational support provided by the “aircraft carrier”:
• An NVIDIA H100 GPU requires an extremely complex and efficient power management scheme and high-speed interface chips to ensure its stable operation and communication with other components.
• A large AI data center not only needs a GPU cluster but also requires a complete system of power supply, thermal management, and signal interconnection composed of analog chips as foundational support.
• Autonomous driving systems need TI’s chips to collect sensor data (perception), manage battery power, and then pass the processed signals to NVIDIA or Qualcomm’s SoCs for decision-making calculations. It is precisely because of TI’s “aircraft carrier” that a continuous, stable, and reliable foundational environment is provided, allowing the “fighter jets” to focus on enhancing peak performance without worries.
🔍 Where is China’s “Aircraft Carrier”?
Your observation also raises a key question: does the Chinese semiconductor industry also need such an “aircraft carrier”? Currently, there are indeed some companies striving for this role, such as Sanken and Naxinwei, which are deeply engaged in the analog chip field. However, objectively speaking, they still have gaps compared to giants like TI in terms of product line breadth, technical depth, manufacturing autonomy, and global ecological influence. While the Chinese semiconductor industry is vigorously developing “fighter jets” (AI chips, CPUs, GPUs), it also needs to pay more attention to and cultivate its own “aircraft carriers” (analog chips, IDM companies) to form a more complete, self-sufficient, and risk-resistant industrial system.
💎 Summary
So, your metaphor vividly reveals the hierarchical structure and interdependence of the semiconductor industry. Texas Instruments (TI), as a global giant in the analog chip field, provides foundational products and the stability of the IDM model, akin to an aircraft carrier, offering indispensable foundational support and endurance for the entire electronic information industry. It is precisely with such an “aircraft carrier” that those companies focused on digital computing, artificial intelligence, and other areas can better unleash their powerful performance, jointly promoting the prosperity and development of the entire technology ecosystem. I hope my analysis helps you gain a deeper understanding of Texas Instruments’ unique value and industry position.