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Public ()
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Technology for Innovators
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1930 (as GSI), 1941
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Dallas, Texas
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Tom Engibous , Chairman<br> Rich Templeton , President & CEO<br> Kevin March , CFO<br> Brian Bonner , CIO
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Semiconductors , Electronics
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Integrated Circuit s, Digital Signal Processor s, Digital Light Processors (DLP) , Calculator s, Sensor s, RFID
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$1339 billion USD (2005)1
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(), 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 .
3
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.
.]]
In 1954, TI designed the first 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.
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
TI-99/4A (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.
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.
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.
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 Processor s 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 Camera s,
DSL modems,
Cable Modem s,
Voice Over IP (VOIP), streaming media,
Speech Compression And Recognition ,
Wireless LAN and residential gateway products, and
RFID .
TI makes a broad range of digital signal processors
OMAP microprocessors for multimedia applications. Some contain C55, ARM7, ARM9, or ARM11 cores.
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
TI is the sole source for
Digital Light Processing micro-mirror components, a technology used in video projectors and televisions.
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.
Texas Instruments is also notable for its calculator range, the
TI-30 being one of the most popular early
Calculator s. TI has also developed a line of
Graphing Calculator s, 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.
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.
