Texas Instruments

From Freepedia

Texas Instruments
Image:TI logo.png
Type Public
Founded 1930 (as GSI), 1941
Location Dallas, Texas
Key people Tom Engibous, Chairman
Rich Templeton, President & CEO
Kevin March, CFO
Industry Semiconductors, Electronics
Products Integrated Circuits, Digital Signal Processors, Digital Light Processors (DLP), Calculators, Sensors, RFID
Revenue Image:Green up.png$12.6 billion USD (2004)
Employees ~35,500 (2004)
Website www.ti.com

Texas Instruments NYSE: TXN, better known in the electronics industry as TI, is a company based in Dallas, Texas, renowned for developing and commercializing semiconductor and computer technology.

Contents

History

Texas Instruments was founded by Cecil H. Green, J. Erik Jonsson, Eugene McDermott and Patrick E. Haggerty, three of whom would live to see their ninetieth birthdays. On December 6, 1941, the four men purchased Geophysical Service Incorporated (GSI), a pioneering provider of seismic exploration services to the petroleum industry. During World War II, GSI built electronics for the U.S. Army Signal Corps and the U.S. Navy. After the war, GSI continued to produce electronics, and in 1951 the company changed its name to Texas Instruments; GSI became a wholly-owned subsidiary of the new company. An early success story for TI-GSI came in the 1950's when GSI was able (under a Top Secret government contract) to monitor the Soviet Union's underground nuclear weapons testing from outcrop bedrock found in Oklahoma. It is said that the US government knew the results of underground testing days before the Soviet Union could figure their own test results.

Image:Ti hq small.jpg

In 1954, TI designed the first transistor radio. Also in the 1950s, the integrated circuit was developed independently by Jack Kilby of TI and Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor. Kilby's patent for a "solid circuit" was filed in 1958. The 7400 series of transistor-transistor logic (TTL) chips, developed by TI in the 1960s, popularized the use of integrated circuits in computer logic, and is in widespread use to this day. TI also invented the hand-held calculator in 1967, the single-chip microcomputer in 1971 and was assigned the first patent on a single-chip microprocessor (invented by Gary Boone) in 1973. (Note: TI is usually given credit with Intel for the almost-simultaneous invention of the microprocessor.)

TI also continued to manufacture equipment for use in the seismic industry, and GSI continued to provide seismic services. After selling (and repurchasing) GSI, TI finally sold the company to Halliburton in 1988, at which point GSI ceased to exist as a separate entity.

TI had two interesting problems with engineering and product development after the introduction of the semiconductor and the microprocessor. 1) Most of the chemicals, machinery and technologies needed to create semiconductors did not exist so TI had to "Invent" these. 2) The market was small for TI electronic components in the early days so TI had to "Invent" uses. For example, TI created the first wall mounted, computer controlled, home set-back thermostat in the late '70s but nobody would buy it mostly because of its cost. TI started an Industrial Controls division which built automated process control computers used in the paint and soup industry and was very successful. This business was eventually sold to Siemens AG. TI turned to military and government uses and had many electro-mechanical devices used in the Apollo rocket and Moon Lander.

Consumer electronics and computers

TI continued to be active in the consumer electronics market through the 1970s and 1980s. In 1978, Texas Instruments introduced the first single chip speech synthesizer and incorporated it in a product called the Speak & Spell, which was later immortalized in the movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Several spinoffs, such as the Speak & Read and Speak & Math, were introduced soon thereafter.

In June 1979, TI entered the home computer market with the TI99/4, a competitor to such entries as the TRS-80 and the later Commodore VIC-20 and Commodore 64. It discontinued the TI99/4A (1981), the sequel to the 99/4, in late 1983 amidst an intense price war versus Commodore, Atari, and others. The TI Professional (1983) ultimately joined the ranks of the many unsuccessful MS-DOS and x86-based--but non-compatible--competitors to the IBM PC. (Ironically, the founders of Compaq all came from TI.) The company for years successfully made and sold PC-compatible laptops before withdrawing from the market and selling its product line to Acer in 1997.

Defense electronics

TI was also active in the defense electronics market in the 1970s and 1980s, designing and manufacturing airborne radars and EO sensor systems, missiles, and laser-guided bombs. As the defense industry consolidated, TI sold its defense business to Raytheon in 1997.

Image:Wiki letter w.pngThis section is a stub. You can help by adding to it.

TI today

Today, TI has four major lines of business: Semiconductors, DLP products, sensors and controls, and educational and productivity solutions.

Semiconductors

Semiconductor products account for approximately 85 percent of TI's revenues. TI has a market leading position in many different product areas, including digital signal processors in the TMS320 series, high speed digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital converters, power management solutions, and high performance analog circuits. Wireless communications has been a primary focus for TI, with around 50 percent of all cellular phones sold world-wide containing TI chips. TI also manufactures other semiconductor products, ranging from application-specific integrated circuits to microcontrollers.

A division of TI Semiconductors called Application Specific Products (ASP) develops specific products that cater to a broad range of DSP applications, such as digital still cameras, DSL modems, cable modems, Voice over IP (VOIP), streaming media, speech compression and recognition, wireless LAN and residential gateway products, and RFID.

Digital Signal Processors

TI makes a broad range of digital signal processors

OMAP microprocessor for multimedia applications. Some contain C55 + arm9 or arm11 cores


Texas Instruments TMS320

TMS320C2xxx - 16 and 32 bit dsps optimised for control applications. C24X - 20 to 40MHz C28X - 100 to 150MHz

TMS320C5xxx - 16 bit fixed point, low power. 100 to 300MHz

TMS320C6xxx - family of High performance DSPs. 300 to 1000MHz

Consists of the C62xx and C64xx fixed point families and the floating point C67xx Also the DM64X Digital Media processors.

Others

TMS320C33, TMS320C3x,TMS320C4x, TMS320C5x and TMS320C8x - multiprocessor dsp. See Texas_Instruments_TMS320 for a more through listing.

Most of the older dsps are still available through TIs miltary dsp site

DLP products

TI is the sole source for digital light processing micro-mirror components, a technology used in video projectors and televisions.

Sensors and controls

Texas Instruments is a major OEM of sensor, control, protection, and RFID products for businesses.

Educational and productivity solutions

Texas Instruments is also notable for its calculator range, the TI-30 being one of the most popular early calculators. TI has also developed a line of graphing calculators, the first being the TI-81, and most popular being the TI-83 Plus. TI is often seen as the competitor to Hewlett-Packard in this regard, with fierce loyalties often arising.

TI calculator community

In the late 1990s, with the advent of TI's graphing calculator series, programming became popular among some students. The TI-8x series of calculators (beginning with the TI-81) came with a built-in BASIC interpreter, through which simple programs could be created. The TI-85 was the first TI calculator to allow assembly programming (via a shell called "ZShell"), and the TI-83 was the first in the series to receive native assembly. While the earlier BASIC programs were relatively simple applications or small games, the modern assembly-based programs rival what one might find on a Game Boy or PDA.

Around the same time that these programs were first being written, personal webpages were becoming popular (through services such as Angelfire and GeoCities), and programmers began creating websites to host their work, along with tutorials and other calculator-relevant information. This led to the formation of TI calculator webrings, and eventually a few large communities, including the now-defunct TI-Files, and active ticalc.org. Ticalc.org is now seen as the authoritative source for programming for TI calculators, and at the site, one can find thousands of applications (including games, educational programs, and even simple operating environments), programming tutorials, calculator news, and discussion forums, among other things.

TI graphing calculators generally fall into two distinct groups, those powered by the Zilog Z80 and those running on the Motorola 68000 series. Although a derivative of the Z80 was in the original Game Boy, the 68000 is far more powerful, and therefore better suited for gaming and processor intensive applications. The 68K calculators, which include the TI-89/Titanium, TI-92/Plus, and Voyage 200, are generally thought of more highly among TI community members than the Z80s. However, the newest of the Z80 series, the TI-84 Plus and TI-84 Plus Silver Edition, are becoming very popular with students new to the product line.

See also


Texas Instruments graphing calculators

Z80: TI-73x | TI-81 | TI-82 | TI-83x | TI-84x | TI-85 | TI-86
m68k: TI-89x | TI-92x and Voyage 200
Proprietary: TI-80

External links

Retrieved from "http://en.freepedia.org/Texas_Instruments.html"


Views
Personal tools
In other languages
Similar Links