Ladies and gentlemen, if you would please take your seats, we will begin the meeting. As you're gathering, let me point out that in the unlikely event of an emergency, we have 4 emergency exits, 2 are to your left, over here on the glass window here, and then 2 are in the back of the room. Mr. Chairman?
Thanks, Cynthia. Good morning, everybody. The 2016 Annual Meeting of Stockholders of Texas Instruments Incorporated is hereby called order. I'm Rich Templeton, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to this year's meeting. First on our agenda today is the election of directors, followed by the consideration of 3 proposals.
Those are number 1, an advisory vote on executive compensation or as it is more commonly known, say on pay number 2, the ratification of independent auditors and number 3, the approval of amendments to the Texas Instruments 2,009 long term incentive plan. While the polls are open for voting, I will review our strategic direction. The Secretary's report on voting will then follow, after which questions or comments from the floor will be in If you would please hold questions or comments until that time as they may be covered during the course of the meeting. But before we begin, I want to introduce some special guests who are with us today. First is Margaret McDermott and Mary McDermott Cook, wife and daughter of TI Founder, Eugene McDermott.
Mary and Margaret, would you please wave to the audience? We are also pleased to have with us a former Director of DI, Jim Adams. Jim Adams, would you please stand and wave to the audience? And finally, Hallie Harris, wife of former TI Director, Buddy Harris. Hallie, would you please stand or wave to the audience?
Cynthia Troshu, Secretary of the Company will act as Secretary of this meeting. The Board of Directors has appointed an independent inspector to conduct a vote at this meeting. Cynthia has advised me that holders of more than 90% of the outstanding common stock are represented at the meeting by proxy or in person. This constitutes a quorum. At this time, I'm pleased to introduce the nominees for election to the TI Board, all except Janet Clark were elected at last year's annual meeting.
Since Janet Clark is new to our Board, I'll take a moment to tell you about her. Janet served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Marathon Oil Corporation from 2,007 to 2013. She is also a Director of EOG Resources and Goldman Sachs BDC. Janet's familiarity with audit and financial control related matters and her experience overseeing the strategy and operations of other large multinational corporations make her a valuable addition to the Board. As I introduce the nominees, I ask if they please stand, turn and face the audience and remain standing.
In addition to myself, the nominees are Ralph Babb, Mark Blinn, Dan Karp, Janet Clark, Carrie Cox, Ron Kirk, Pam Patzley, Robert Sanchez, Wayne Sanders and Christy Whitman. Each of these nominees and their qualifications as directors are listed in our proxy statement. You may now be seated. PI's bylaws require advanced notice of proposed nominations. Since no notice of other nominations have been submitted in accordance with the bylaws, the nominations are closed.
Before we move to the proposals, I would like to take just a moment to recognize one of our directors who isn't standing for reelection this year, Ruth Simmons, has reached the retirement age called for in TI's bylaws. She has been an outstanding director. Ruth joined the TI Board in 1999. During her years of service on the Board, she's been a member of every Board Committee. She has served twice as Chair of Governance and Stockholders Relations Committee, where she brought a clear vision of the Board's role during a time of unprecedented focus on corporate governance.
Her long and highly distinguished professional career in academia enabled her to contribute unique and valuable ideas to the deliberations of the Board. I and the rest of the Board thank Ruth for her valuable service. We'll now consider the 3 Board proposals that I referenced earlier. The Board of Directors recommends that stockholders cast an advisory vote for the proposal approving executive compensation for 2015 as disclosed in our proxy statement that stockholders ratify the appointment of as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for 2016 and approve amendments to the Texas Instruments 2,009 long term incentive plan. The text and related discussion of the Board proposals are in our proxy statement, so I won't take additional time to describe the proposals.
This would be an appropriate time for comment on the nominations and the Board proposals. Please limit your comments to a total of 3 minutes. We will now open the polls and take the vote on the election of directors and the Board proposals. The polls will remain open for 10 minutes. The votes of the 401 participants and those that have been sent in a proxy or voted by telephone or Internet have already been counted.
If any stockholder of record has not submitted a proxy or voted by telephone or Internet and wishes to submit a ballot, you may do so now. The right to vote directly at this meeting is limited to stockholders of record and proxy holders. Also, if you have previously submitted proxy or voted by telephone or Internet, you may change your vote by submitting a ballot. Please raise your hand if you need a ballot. Okay.
While the votes are being tabulated, I will take a few minutes to share my thoughts with you about our strategic direction and the progress that we're making. The right strategy for the right time is the linchpin of a company's long term success. It gives you purpose and direction, it simplifies decisions, it defines resource allocation and ultimately, it focuses everyone's efforts and makes you faster. We have this at TI and I believe it enables us to be uniquely positioned to solve more of the semiconductor needs of our customers and at the same time return more benefits to our shareholders. And let's take a closer look at why.
At TI, we have been fortunate to have had our strategy in place for several years and have built a company focused on analog and embedded processing semiconductor technologies. We believe these technologies are the best places for us to be in the industry and our consistent share gains in the past 6 years back that up. Why else do I believe that these 2 technologies are best? Because they are pervasive and they exist in virtually every piece of electronics equipment because they are diverse, supporting multiple markets and a myriad of applications because they are long lived, giving us the benefit of time to recoup our investments and lastly, because they use mature manufacturing assets and processes, allowing us a measured approach to capital expenditures. So let's dig just a little deeper to understand how these translate to our strategy.
1st, we have a broad portfolio of differentiated products that allows us to engage across many markets and many customers. With tens of thousands of products, our portfolio generates a lot of 2nd, the 2nd, the diversity and longevity of our products means that we are not dependent on any one product nor are we bound to the fortunes of any one customer or market. We understand that the next big thing doesn't always translate into sustained progress. So our strategic approach is to invest in products that reach tens of thousands of customers and thousands of applications. 3rd, given the size of our sales force and sheer number of visits to ti.com, we have the broadest market reach of any direct competitor.
This gives us unique access to more than 100,000 TI customers and their projects. Finally, we are the 1st company to apply 300 millimeter manufacturing technology to analog production. And by doing so, we enjoy a 40% cost advantage over 200 millimeter wafer technology that most of our competitors use simply by putting more chips on a single wafer. We also take the long view on capital purchases, and we buy well ahead of demand so that we are at the ready when our customers and markets need more. The net results of all this are competitive advantages that benefit our customers, generate greater cash flow and overall are difficult for competitors to duplicate.
Our 2015 numbers speak for themselves. We had record gross margin of 58.2%, record operating margin of 32.9%. We invested nearly $1,300,000,000 in research and development, an amount higher than any of our direct competitors cash flow margin set a record at 28.6 percent of revenue. We also made important capital investments by qualifying our second 300 millimeter analog factory, which gives us a total of $6,000,000,000 worth of open capacity for future revenue growth. Then as we promised, we turned to our commitment to shareholders and we returned 100% of our free cash flow in the form of dividends and stock repurchases.
Now nothing stays still in our industry. So while we have a strong strategy that gets results, we are well attuned to changes and new market opportunities. Historically, personal electronics have been a key driver of semiconductor growth as computers, cell phones and tablets generated successive waves of new innovation with products that previously didn't exist. This remains an important market to us now and far into our future. But equally exciting today is applying semiconductor technology to existing systems, helping to get them smarter, safer and more efficient.
Specifically, we believe nascent and growing opportunities in industrial and automotive markets will be key drivers for semiconductor growth in the years ahead. And therefore, we are focusing more of our resources here. Industrial, in particular, is in its formative stages. Many industrial applications have yet to be touched by semiconductors as their underlying technology remains more mechanical than electronic. So imagine the possibilities in this vast diverse market.
Things like an HVAC technician who can run a remote wireless diagnostic before rolling a service truck or a washing machine with variable speed motor that reduces power consumption by 60% or an airport parking garage that identifies which rows still have empty spaces for your car. The list of applications rolled out in the last few years or more importantly still waiting to be developed is literally huge. And that's the exciting part to us at TI because we make the chips needed for these types of technological changes. Similarly, in the automotive market, the cars of today are much smarter than those built just 10 years ago. Things like tire pressure sensors, blind spot detection or collision warning systems are becoming the new norm across fleets at all price points and more is coming.
These new applications are just the tip of the iceberg in the industrial and the automotive markets, and it's all made possible with analog and embedded technologies. Another change is the growing importance of the World Wide Web or Internet as the primary tool for design engineers to make purchase and design in decisions. Just as with their personal shopping habits, design engineers are moving online to find products and in our case, find chips. Here too, TI is advantaged because we have invested in our website with the design engineer in mind. We get 5 times more visits to ti.com than our largest competitor does to their website.
A quick browse on ti.com can quickly lead you to a deep dive on an application or product you're researching similar to the experiences on a retail site. Today, we believe the web experience for design engineers on ti.com is among the industry's best. Though certainly the world is changing at an unprecedented pace and with these changes come opportunities for which TI is exceptionally well positioned. But there is something that we intend never to change, our core values of integrity, innovation and commitment. These values have been at the heart of who we are and how we behave for decades.
In concept, they date back to our founders and their vision for TI at its inception. Certainly, we have evolved along the way, into account changes in the industry and in the world. But we are proud that TI has long since departed and the TI people today share a common character and a foundation of ethics that are instilled in our company's DNA. And this, we never intend to change. As I finish these remarks, I want to emphasize that we are focusing on the right markets at the right time, markets that are diverse, long lived, that produce profits and generate cash and that offer at least some stability in a macroeconomic environment that can be both tepid and volatile at times.
We're committed to innovation that strengthens our businesses and enables our customers to reach new heights. We're equally committed to deserving the trust that you, our shareholders, have shown throughout our strategic journey. And we intend to do that by delivering results that get you a great return on your investment in us. Thank you for listening. Madam Secretary, have you received the results of the balloting?
I have, Mr. Chairman. According to the report of the inspectors, the 11 persons nominated by the Board have been elected, over 97% of the shares cast were voted for the election of each of them, no more than 2% voted against and approximately 1% abstained. On the advisory vote regarding executive compensation, approximately 90 approximately 5% were voted to disapprove it and less than 1% abstained. The Board of Directors proposal to ratify the appointment of Ernst and Young as the company's independent registered public accounting firm was approved.
Approximately 99% of the shares cast were voted in favor of the proposal, approximately 1% voted against and less than 1% abstained. The Board of Directors proposal to approve the amendments to the Texas Instruments 2,009 long term incentive plan was approved. Approximately 91% of the shares caps the proposal, approximately 8% voted against and 1% abstained. This concludes my report.
Thank you. The floor is now open. At this time, I would be pleased to take any questions or comments regarding TI's business from the floor. As a courtesy to all present or listening via webcast, our rules call for comments to be limited to 5 minutes per person regardless of the number of topics you wish