Texas Instruments

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Template:Infobox Company)| 

 company_slogan = Technology for Innovators|
 foundation     = 1930 (as GSI), 1941|
 location       = Dallas, Texas|
 key_people     = Tom Engibous, Chairman
Rich Templeton, President & CEO
Kevin March, CFO
Brian Bonner, CIO |
 industry       = Semiconductors, Electronics|
 products       = Integrated Circuits, Digital Signal Processors, Digital Light Processors (DLP), Calculators, Sensors, RFID|
 revenue        = Template:Profit$13.39 billion USD (2005)<ref>Template:Cite press release</ref>|
 num_employees  = ~35,000 (2005)<ref>{{cite web
            | title=Texas Instruments Fact Sheet
            | publisher=Texas Instrumens
            | url=http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/press/company/2006/tifactsheet.shtml
            | accessdate=2006-03-25}} </ref> |
 homepage       = www.ti.com

}} Texas Instruments (Template:Nyse), better known in the electronics industry (and popularly) as TI, is a company based in Dallas, Texas, renowned for developing and commercializing semiconductor and computer technology. As of 2006, the company was listed at number 167 on the Fortune 500.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

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History

Texas Instruments was founded by Cecil H. Green, J. Erik Jonsson, Eugene McDermott and Patrick E. Haggerty. 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.

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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. At the 1983 Winter CES TI showed models 99/2 and the Compact Computer 40 (CC-40), the latter aimed at professional users. 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.

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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.

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TI today

Today, TI is made up of four business units: Semiconductors (including DLP products), Wireless Terminal Business, WTBU (TI is the world's largest supplier of wireless chipset), Sensors & Controls (sale pending to Bain Capital LLC), and Educational & Productivity Solutions.

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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.

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Digital Signal Processors

TI makes a broad range of digital signal processors

OMAP microprocessors for multimedia applications. Some contain C55, ARM7, ARM9, or ARM11 cores.

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Texas Instruments TMS320
See main article on Texas Instruments TMS320

Also the DM64X Digital Media processors.

Others

TMS320C33, TMS320C3x,TMS320C4x, TMS320C5x and TMS320C8x - multiprocessor dsp.

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

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DLP products

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

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Wireless Terminal Business Unit

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Sensors & Controls

Texas Instruments is a major OEM of sensor, control, protection, and RFID products for the automotive, appliance, aircraft, and other industries. The S&C divsion is headquartered in Attleboro, Massachusetts.

TI announced on Monday, January 9, 2006 that Bain Capital LLC, a private equity firm, will purchase the Sensors and Controls business unit for $3.0 billion in cash. The RFID portion of the business will remain part of TI, and will become part of the Semiconductor division. The sale will be completed in the first half of 2006.<ref> {{cite press release 

| publisher = Texas Instruments
|         date = January 9, 2006
|        title = Bain Capital to Purchase Sensors & Controls Business of Texas Instruments for $3 Billion
|          url = http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/press/company/2006/c06001.shtml
}}</ref>
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Educational & 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.

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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-83 Plus and TI-84 Plus Silver Edition, are becoming very popular with students new to the product line.

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Corporate Governance

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See also

Template:TI-graphing-calc

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Footnotes

<references/>

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External links

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