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Texas Instruments Incorporated |
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12500 TI Blvd. Dallas, TX 75266-0199 TX Tel. 972-995-3773 Toll Free 800-336-5236 Fax 972-927-6377 |
Type: Public
On the web:
http://www.ti.com
Employees:
28,412
Employee growth: 6.9%
Say hello to the big Texan. One of the world's oldest and largest semiconductor makers, Texas Instruments (TI) is the market leader in digital signal processors (DSPs) and a leading maker of analog semiconductors, which change real-world signals (such as sound and images) into the digital data streams processed by DSPs. Many wireless phones sold worldwide contain TI's DSPs, which are also found in DVD players, automotive systems, and computer modems. The company's other semiconductor products include logic chips, microprocessors, microcontrollers, and display components. TI also makes calculators. About three-quarters of sales come from customers in the Asia/Pacific region.
Key numbers for fiscal year ending December, 2010:
Sales: $13,966.0M
One year growth: 33.9%
Net income: $3,228.0M
Income growth: 119.6%
Officers:
Chairman, President, and CEO: Richard K. (Rich) Templeton
SVP and CFO: Kevin P. March
VP Information Technology Services and CIO: Brian Bonner
Competitors:
Freescale Semiconductor
QUALCOMM
STMicroelectronics
TechEncyclopedia:
TI |
(Texas Instruments, Inc., Dallas, TX, www.ti.com) A leading semiconductor manufacturer founded in 1930 as Geophysical Service, an independent contractor specializing in petroleum exploration using sound waves (reflection seismograph method). In 1938, it spun off Geophysical Services, Inc. a Delaware subsidiary to do explorations for others. The parent company was later renamed Coronado Corporation, which ultimately dissolved in 1945.
In 1941, GSI was purchased by three employees and one of the original founders. The next day, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and the company found itself making equipment that would find enemy submarines, not just oil.
In 1951, GSI's name was changed to Texas Instruments, and soon after began making transistors via a licensing arrangement with Western Electric. In 1954, TI pioneered the first commercial production of transistors made from silicon, and in that same year, introduced the first pocket-sized transistor radio.
In 1958, TI's Jack Kilby demonstrated the first integrated circuit (IC), which incorporated several transistors on a single chip. Three years later, it demonstrated a working computer using ICs that were six cubic inches in size and weighed only 10 ounces. TI produced a complete computer on a chip (microcontroller) in 1971.
In the early 1980s, TI made a large number of low-priced 99/4a home computers. It later introduced desktop PCs, but then discontinued them. A line of notebook PCs was offered for several years, but this mobile computing part of the business was sold to the Acer Group in 1997.
As the first to commercialize the silicon transistor, pocket radio, integrated circuit, handheld calculator, single-chip computer and the LISP chip, TI has a long history of contributions to the electronics and computer industry.
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Texas Instruments Inc. |
Incorporated: 1930 as Geophysical Service, Inc.
NAIC: 334413 Semiconductor and Related Device Manufacturing; 335314 Relay and Industrial Control Manufacturing
Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) operates as one of the largest semiconductor manufacturers in the world. By 2001, it had a leading market share in the analog chip and digital signal processor (DSP) industries. In fact, over half of the world's wireless phones have TI's DSPs. The company's main businesses include semiconductors, which accounted for 87 percent of revenues in 2000; educational and productivity solutions; sensors and controls; and digital light processing (DLP) products. While TI experienced record financial results in 2000, the company's profits were significantly impacted during 2001, when the semiconductor industry experienced one of worst downturns in its history.
The history of Texas Instruments is intimately related to the history of the American electronics industry. TI was one of the first companies to manufacture transistors, and it introduced the first commercial silicon transistors. It was a TI engineer--Jack Kilby--who developed the first semiconductor integrated circuit in 1958, and TI's semiconductor chips helped fuel the modern electronics revolution. (Kilby won a Nobel Prize in 2000 for his contributions.) After a disappointing performance in the 1980s, the corporation abandoned its long-held, but unfulfilled dream of becoming a consumer electronics powerhouse in favor of specialization in high-tech computer components.
Texas Instruments' roots can be traced to Geophysical Service, a petroleum-exploration firm founded in 1930 by Dr. J. Clarence Karcher and Eugene McDermott. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, Geophysical Service used a technique for oil exploration developed by Karcher. The technique, reflection seismology, used underground sound waves to find and map those areas most likely to yield oil. When Karcher and McDermott opened a research and equipment manufacturing office in Newark, New Jersey--to keep their research and their seismography equipment operations out of view of competitors--they hired J. Erik Jonsson, a mechanical engineer, to head it.
Toward the end of the 1930s, Geophysical Service began to change its business focus because of the erratic nature of the oil exploration business. The company was reorganized: an oil company, Coronado Corporation, was established as the parent company, and a geophysical company, Geophysical Service, Inc. (GSI), was formed as a subsidiary. McDermott and Jonsson, along with two other GSI employees, purchased GSI from Coronado in 1941. During World War II, oil exploration continued, and the company also looked for other business opportunities. The skills GSI acquired producing seismic devices were put to use in the development and manufacture of electronic equipment for the armed services. This experience revealed marked similarities in design and performance requirements for the two kinds of equipment. Jonsson, encouraged by GSI's expansion during the war, helped make military manufacturing a major company focus. By 1942, GSI was working on military contracts for the U.S. Navy and the Army Signal Corps. This marked the beginning of the company's diversification into electronics unrelated to petroleum exploration.
After the war, Jonsson coaxed a young naval officer named Patrick E. Haggerty--a man of exceptional vision--to join GSI. At a time when many defense contractors had shifted their focus from military manufacturing to civilian markets, Haggerty and Jonsson firmly believed that defense contracts would help them establish GSI as a leading-edge electronics company. They won contracts to produce such military equipment as airborne magnometers and complete radar systems. Haggerty, who was general manager of the Laboratory and Manufacturing (L&M) division, also set about turning GSI into a major electronics manufacturer. He and Jonsson soon won approval from the board of directors to build a new plant to consolidate scattered operations into one unit. The new building opened in 1947.
By 1951, the L&M division was growing faster than GSI's Geophysical division. The company was reorganized again and renamed General Instruments Inc. Because its new name was already in use by another company, however, General Instruments became Texas Instruments that same year. Geophysical Service Inc. became a subsidiary of Texas Instruments in the reorganization, which it remained until early 1988, when most of the company was sold to the Halliburton Company.
The next major change came late in 1953, when Texas Instruments went public by merging with the almost-dormant Intercontinental Rubber Company. The merger brought TI new working capital and a listing on the New York Stock Exchange and helped fuel the company's subsequent growth. Indeed, the postwar era was a heady time for Texas Instruments. In 1953 alone, TI acquired seven new companies. Sales skyrocketed from $6.4 million in 1949 to $20 million in 1952 to $92 million in 1958, establishing TI as a major electronics manufacturer.
An important factor in TI's astronomical growth in the 1950s was the transistor. In 1952, TI paid $25,000 to Western Electric for a license to manufacture its newly patented germanium transistor. Within two years, TI was mass-producing high-frequency germanium transistors and had introduced the first commercial silicon transistor. The silicon transistor was based on research conducted by Gordon Teal, who had been hired from Bell Laboratories to head TI's research laboratories. Teal and his research team had developed a way to make transistors out of silicon rather than germanium in 1954. Silicon had many advantages over germanium, not least of which was its resistance to high temperatures. The silicon transistor was a critical breakthrough.
It was Patrick Haggerty who was convinced that there was a huge market for consumer products that used inexpensive transistors. In 1954, TI, together with the Regency division of Industrial Engineering Associates, Inc., developed the world's first small, inexpensive, portable radio using the germanium transistors TI had developed. The new Regency Radio was introduced in late 1954 and became the hot gift item of the 1954 Christmas season. The transistor soon usurped the place of vacuum tubes forever.
During all this, Haggerty and Mark Shepherd Jr.--then manager of TI's Semiconductor Components division and later chairman of TI--had been trying, with little success, to persuade IBM to make TI a supplier of transistors for its computers. But Thomas Watson Jr., president and founder of IBM, was impressed with the Regency Radio, and in 1957 IBM signed an agreement that made TI a major component supplier for IBM computers. In 1958, Patrick Haggerty was named to succeed Jonsson as president.
From 1956 to 1958, Texas Instruments' annual sales doubled from $46 million to $92 million. In 1957, TI opened its first manufacturing facility outside the United States--a plant in Bedford, England, to supply semiconductors to Britain and Western Europe. In 1959, TI's merger with Metals and Controls Corporation--a maker of clad metals, control instruments, and nuclear fuel components and instrument cores--gave TI two U.S. plants as well as facilities in Mexico, Argentina, Italy, Holland, and Australia.
One of Texas Instruments' most important breakthroughs occurred in 1958 when a newly hired employee, Jack S. Kilby, came up with the idea for the first integrated circuit. The integrated circuit was a pivotal innovation. Made of a single semiconductor material, it eliminated the need to solder components together. Without wiring and soldering, components could be miniaturized, which allowed for more compact circuitry and also meant huge numbers of components could be crowded onto a single chip.
To be sure, there were manufacturing problems to be overcome. The chips had to be produced in an entirely dust-free environment; an error-free method of "printing" the circuits onto the silicon chips had to be devised; and miniaturization itself made manufacturing difficult. But Texas Instruments realized the chip's potential and, after two years of development, the company's first commercial integrated circuits were made available in 1960. Although the electronics industry initially greeted the chip with skepticism, integrated circuits became the foundation of modern microelectronics. Smaller, lighter, faster, more dependable, and more powerful than its predecessors, the chip had many advantages; however, it was expensive--$100 for small quantities in 1962. But integrated circuits were ideally suited for use in computers. Together, chips and computers experienced explosive growth.
Semiconductors quickly became a key element in space technology, too, and early interest by the military and the U.S. space program gave TI and its competitors the impetus to improve their semiconductor chips and refine their production techniques. Under Jack Kilby, TI built the first computer to use silicon integrated circuits for the air force. Demonstrated in 1961, this ten-ounce, 600-part computer proved that integrated circuits were practical.
Chip prices fell to an average of $8 per unit by 1965, making the circuits affordable enough to use in consumer products. Another important breakthrough came in 1969, when IBM began using integrated circuits in all its computers. Soon the government was no longer TI's main customer, although defense electronics remained an important part of its business. Within ten years of Kilby's discovery, semiconductors had become a multi-billion-dollar industry. Early on, TI's management anticipated a huge world demand for semiconductors, and in the 1960s the company built manufacturing plants in Europe, Latin America, and Asia. TI's early start in these markets gave the company an edge over its competitors.
In 1966, Haggerty was elected chairman of TI's board when Jonsson left to become mayor of Dallas. Haggerty had already challenged a team of engineers to develop a new product--the portable, pocket-sized calculator--to show that integrated circuits had a place in the consumer market. In 1967, TI engineers invented a prototype hand-held calculator that weighed 45 ounces. It was four years before the hand-held calculator hit the stores, but once it did, it made history. Within a few years, the once-ubiquitous slide rule was obsolete.
In 1970, TI invented the single-chip microprocessor, or microcomputer, which was introduced commercially the next year. It was this breakthrough chip that paved the way not only for small, inexpensive calculators but also for all sorts of computer-controlled appliances and devices. TI formally entered the consumer-electronic calculator market in 1972 with the introduction of a four-ounce portable calculator and two desktop models, which ranged in price from $85 to $120. Sales of calculators soared from about 3 million units in 1971 to 17 million in 1973, 28 million in 1974, and 45 million in 1975.
Despite this early success, TI was to learn many bitter lessons about marketing to the American consumer. Even early success was hard won. Bowmar Instruments had been selling a calculator that used TI-made chips since 1971. In 1972, when TI entered the calculator market and tried to undercut Bowmar's price, Bowmar quickly matched TI and a price war ensured. TI subscribed to learning-curve pricing: keep prices low (and profits small) in the early stages to build market share and develop manufacturing efficiencies, and then competitors who want to enter the market later will find it difficult or impossible to compete. But after a few years, competitors did begin to make inroads into TI's business; by 1975, as increased competition in the market led to plummeting prices; the calculator market softened, leading to a $16 million loss for TI in the second quarter.
However, TI rebounded and again sent shock waves through the consumer-electronics world in 1976 when it introduced an inexpensive, reliable electronic digital watch for a mere $19.95. Almost overnight, TI's watches grabbed a large share of the electronic watch market at the expense of long-established watch manufacturers. A little more than a year later, TI cut the price of its digital watch to $9.95.
When low-cost Asian imports flooded the market in 1978, however, Texas Instruments began to lose its dominant position. TI also failed to capitalize on liquid crystal display (LCD) technology, for which it held the basic patent. It had not anticipated strong consumer demand for LCD watches, which displayed the time continuously rather than requiring the user to push a button for a readout. When sales of LCD watches exploded, TI could not begin mass-production quickly enough. The company's digital watch sales dropped dramatically in 1979, by the end of 1981 TI had left the digital watch business.
Meanwhile, in TI's mainstay business, semiconductor manufacturing, orders for chips became backlogged. Texas Instruments had spread its resources thinly in order to compete in both the consumer and industrial markets, and worldwide chip demand had soared at the same time. Despite these problems, TI grew at a rapid rate during the 1970s. Defense electronics continued to be highly profitable and semiconductor demand remained strong, buoyed by the worldwide growth in consumer-electronics manufacturing. The company reached $1 billion in sales in 1973, $2 billion in 1977, and $3 billion in 1979.
Mark Shepherd was named chairman of the board upon Patrick Haggerty's retirement in 1976, and J. Fred Bucy, who had worked in almost all of TI's major business areas, was named president and remained chief operating officer. Haggerty continued as general director and honorary chairman until his death in 1980.
In 1978, Texas Instruments introduced Speak & Spell, an educational device that used TI's new speech-synthesis technology, which proved quite popular. That same year, TI was held up as Business Week's model for American companies in the 1980s for its innovation, productivity gains, and phenomenal growth and earnings records.
In mid-1979, TI introduced a home computer that reached the market in December. Priced at about $1,400, the machine sold more slowly at first than TI had predicted. In 1981, sales began to pick up, though, and a rebate program in 1982 kept sales--and sales predictions--very strong. In April 1983, TI shipped its one millionth home computer.
Suddenly, however, sales of the TI-99/4A fell off dramatically. By October, TI's overconfident projections and failure to predict the price competitiveness of the market had driven the company out of the home computer business altogether. By the time the 99/4A was withdrawn from the market, TI's usual competitive-pricing strategy had reduced the computer's retail price below the company's production cost, causing TI's first-ever loss, $145 million, in 1983.
TI's consumer electronics never managed to become a consistent money-maker. The company was often accused of arrogance--of trying to find mass markets for new TI inventions rather than adapting its product lines to accommodate customers' needs--and TI's aggressive price-cutting was often insensitive to dealers and customers alike. In addition, TI's pursuit of both consumer and industrial markets often caused shortages of components resulting in backlogged or reduced shipments.
After experiencing its first loss, TI found regaining its former footing difficult. A slump in semiconductor demand during the recession of the early 1980s made TI's heavy losses in home computers particularly painful. Cost-cutting became a high priority, and TI trimmed its work force by 10,000 employees between 1980 and 1982. In addition, management decided that its matrix management structure was strangling the company and so began to modify the system to revive innovation. Although the company's engineers continued to lead the semiconductor field in innovations, increased competition both in the United States and overseas meant that technological superiority was no longer a guarantee of success. The company recorded yet another $100 million-plus loss in 1985.
TI President Fred Bucy was roundly criticized for being abrasive and autocratic, and the disappointments of the early 1980s hastened his departure. In May 1985, Bucy abruptly retired and Jerry Junkins was elected president and CEO. Junkins, a lifetime TI employee with a much cooler and more conciliatory management style, proved a popular chief executive.
TI's aggressive defense of its intellectual property rights--the exclusive use of the patented technological developments of its employees--highlighted activities in the late 1980s. In 1986, TI filed suit with the International Trade Commission against eight Japanese and one Korean semiconductor manufacturers who were selling dynamic random-access memories (DRAMs) in the United States without obtaining licenses to use technology that belonged to TI. TI reached out-of-court settlements with most of the companies but, more importantly, demonstrated that infringements on its patents would not be tolerated. Royalties from these decisions proved an important source of revenue (over $250 million annually) for TI.
In late 1988, Texas Instruments announced plans to join Japan's Hitachi, Ltd. in developing 16-megabit DRAM technology. Although this decision came as quite a surprise to the electronics industry, given TI's successful Japanese subsidiary and its manufacturing plant there, TI explained that the move was necessary to spread the mounting risks and costs involved in producing such an advanced chip.
Back in 1977, TI had boldly set itself a sales goal of $10 billion by 1989; not long after, it upped the ante to $15 billion by 1990. The company actually entered the 1990s some $9 billion short of that extraordinary goal. After watching its share of the semiconductor market slide from 30 percent to a meager 5 percent over the course of the decade, Junkins took a decisive step. In 1989, the CEO inaugurated a strategic plan to radically reshape Texas Instruments, dubbed "TI 2000." A key aspect of the plan was to loosen the corporation's traditionally tight corporate culture and encourage innovation. This fundamental change was intimately linked to a shift in manufacturing focus from cheap, commodity-based computer chips to high-margin, custom-designed microprocessors and digital signal processors. For example, in 1989 TI embarked on a partnership with Sun Microsystems Inc. to design and manufacture microprocessors, sharing engineering personnel and proprietary technology in the process. TI garnered vital contracts with Sony Corporation, General Motors Corporation, and Swedish telecommunications powerhouse L.M. Ericsson. The company promoted its repositioning with new business-to-business advertising. From 1988 to 1993, the specialty components segment increased from 25 percent of annual sales to nearly 50 percent. In 1993, Junkins told Business Week that TI was "looking for shared dependence" in these partnerships. He also hoped to parlay technological gains into mass sales.
Under Junkins, TI also increased its global manufacturing capacity through a number of joint ventures in Europe and Asia. A 1990 partnership with the Italian government allowed the shared construction expenses of a $1.2 billion plant. In 1991, the firm joined with Canon, Hewlett-Packard, and the Singapore government to construct a semiconductor facility in Singapore. By 1992, TI had forged alliances with Taiwanese manufacturer Acer, Kobe Steel in Japan, and a coterie of companies in Singapore. Texas Instruments planned to invest $1 billion in Asian plants by the turn of the century. Joint ventures with Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and Hitachi, Ltd. in 1994 split the costs of building semiconductor plants in Portugal and the United States, respectively. TI 2000 also set a goal of increasing the company's high-margin software sales five times, to $1 billion, by the mid-1990s.
Although Texas Instruments recorded net losses in 1990 and 1991, the company's sales and profits rebounded in 1992 and 1993. Profitability, in terms of sales per employee, increased dramatically from $88,300 in 1989 to $143,240 in 1993. In 1992, the firm won the coveted Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in manufacturing and adopted the Baldrige criteria as its quality standards. Wall Street noticed the improved performance: TI's stock price more than doubled from 1991 to early 1993.
The firm continued to develop new products, invest in strategic alliances, and divest non-core, slow-growth businesses. In 1994, it launched the multimedia video processor, the first single chip processor to become available commercially that combined multiple parallel DSP and RISC chips. The following year, it won both the prestigious Singapore Quality Award and the European Quality Award. It was during this time period that the company began to focus on DSP chips, which could convert analog signals into digital form in real time. Eyeballing the market as a lucrative growth avenue, TI invested heavily in this area. During the 1990s, DSP chips began to be used in such as products as modems, cellular phones, PC peripherals, and television sets. By 1997, TI controlled 45 percent of the market.
While TI worked hard to get itself back on track in the 1990s, it continued to face hardships. During 1996, the price of its memory chips dropped by nearly 80 percent. Then, during an overseas business meeting in May, Junkins died suddenly of heart failure. Long-time TI employee Tom Engibous took over as president and CEO and stepped up the company's acquisition and divestiture plan. In 1997, several of the firm's business units were sold including Defense Systems & Electronics, Mobile Computing, Software, MulTIpoint Systems, Inspection Equipment, the Mold Manufacturing businesses, the Chemical Operations department, the Telecommunications Systems division, and the Power semiconductor unit. The company also made several key acquisitions including Intersect Technologies, Amati Communications Corp., and GO DSP Corp.
When questioned about the company's rapid movements in a 1997 Electronic Business article, Engibous commented "a tragedy like that--referring to Junkins' death--causes you to spend time reflecting. We concluded that what we were doing was in the right direction, but we thought we needed to do it at a much more rapid pace." As such, the company continued to acquire firms related to its DSP focus including Spectron Microsystems, Adaptec Inc., Oasix Corp., and Arisix Corp. TI also sold its memory chip business to Micron Technologies Inc. for $880 million.
The acquisitions continued into the following year. TI added Butterfly VLSI Ltd., Integrated Sensor Solutions, Telogy Networks, ATL Research A/S, Libit Signal Processing Ltd., Unitrode Corp., and Power Trends to its arsenal. The firm continued to develop new products as well, including a DSP chip that facilitated high-speed Internet access. Along with leading the DSP market with a 48 percent share, TI held the top position in the analog semiconductor market for the second year in a row. All in all, TI launched 191 analog products in 1999, nearly seven times more than it developed in 1996.
TI entered the new millennium on solid ground. The company's financial performance appeared to be back on track with revenues of $11.8 billion and profits of $2.7 billion. During 2000, the firm purchased Toccata Technology ApS, Burr-Brown Corp., Alantro Communications, and Dot Wireless Inc. It also formed a partnership with Qualcomm Inc. in which both companies were allowed to supply integrated circuits for all wireless standards without infringing on patent rights. TI partnered with four China-based manufacturers to develop and distribute wireless handsets and consumer electronics. The company also teamed up with Imax Corp. to develop digital projectors for movie theaters as well as IMAX theaters. Under the terms of the deal, Imax became the exclusive licensee of TI's DLP Cinema technology.
The tide quickly changed, however, when in the latter half of 2000 and into 2001 the semiconductor industry became embroiled in its worst downturn to date due to high customer inventories and weakening demand. Heavily dependent on that segment, TI's profits began to drop off dramatically and were not expected to return until sometime in 2003. Sales also fell throughout the year, down by as much as 40 percent.
"Despite the challenges," claimed a 2001 Business Week article, "few doubt that TI will remain one of the chip industry's leading players in 2003. TI also has a reputation for excellent service, something that impresses long-term customers looking for more participation and input from suppliers." The company's history of overcoming challenges left Engibous confident that TI would emerge from this downturn successfully. With a strong focus on developing technologies, TI appeared to be well positioned to withstand these hardships.
Principal Subsidiaries
Amati Communications Corporation; Auto Circuits, Inc.; Automotive Sensors & Controls Dresden GmbH (Germany); Benchmarq Microelectronics Corporation of South Korea; Burr-Brown AG (Switzerland); Burr-Brown Europe Limited (England); Burr-Brown Pte Ltd. (Singapore); Butterfly Communications Inc.; European Engineering and Technologies S.p.A. (Italy); Fast Forward Technologies Limited (England and Wales); GO DSP Corporation (Canada); ICOT International Limited (UK); Intelligent Instrumentation GmbH (Germany); Intelligent Instrumentation, Inc.; JMA Information Engineering Ltd.;Power Trends, Inc.; Silicon Systems (Singapore) Pte Ltd.; Telogy Networks, Inc.; Texas Instrumentos Eletronicos do Brasil Limitada; Texas Instruments A/S (Denmark); Texas Instruments Asia Limited; Texas Instruments Automotive Sensors and Controls; Texas Instruments Business Expansion GmbH (Germany); Texas Instruments Canada Limited; Texas Instruments (China) Company Limited; Texas Instruments de Mexico, S.A. de C.V.; Texas Instruments Deutschland GmbH (Germany); Texas Instruments Equipamento Electronicl Lda. (Portugal); Texas Instruments France S.A.; Texas Instruments Holland B.V.; Texas Instruments Hong Kong Limited; Texas Instruments (India) Limited; Texas Instruments Italia S.p.A.; Texas Instruments Japan Limited; Texas Instruments Korea Limited; Texas Instruments Ltd.; Texas Instruments Malaysia Sdn. Bhd.; Texas Instruments Inc. (Philippines); Texas Instruments Singapore (Pte) Ltd.; Texas Instruments Taiwan Ltd. Texas Instruments Limited (United Kingdom); Unitrode Corporation.
Principal Competitors
Analog Devices Inc.; Motorola Inc.; STMicorelectronics N.V.
Further Reading
Boitano, Margaret, "Burn, Baby, Burn," Fortune, March 20, 2000, p. 254.
Burrows, Peter, "TI Is Moving Up in the World," Business Week, August 2, 1993, pp. 46-47.
Josifovska, Svetlana, "Deep in the Heart of Texas Instruments," Electronic Business, October 2000, p. 116.
Kharif, Olga, "Texas Instruments' Long Road Back," Business Week, October 26, 2001.
Lineback, J. Robert, "Rebuilding TI," Electronic Business Buyer, March 1994, pp. 52-7.
Palmeri, Christopher, "Chips Ahoy!," Forbes, April 7, 1997, p. 48.
------, "Faster, Faster: TI's Signal Processors Make Possible Lots of New Gifts for Gadget Geeks," Forbes, March 6, 2000, p. 60.
Ristelhueber, Robert, "Texas Tornado," Electronic Business, December 1997, p. 35.
Rogers, Alison, "Texas Instruments: It's the Execution that Counts," Fortune, November 3, 1992, pp. 80-3.
"TI, IMAX Partner," Dallas Business Journal, June 9, 2000, p. 20.
Williams, Elisa, "Mixed Signals," Forbes, May 28, 2001, p. 80.
— Updates: April Dougal Gasbarre; Christina M. Stansell
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
Texas Instruments |
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This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page.
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| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| Traded as | NYSE: TXN NASDAQ: TXN S&P 500 Component |
| Industry | Semiconductor |
| Founded | 1930 (as Geophysical Service Incorporated) 1951 (as Texas Instruments) |
| Headquarters | Dallas, Texas, United States |
| Key people | Rich Templeton (Chairman, President and CEO) |
| Products | Analog electronics Calculators Digital signal processors Digital light processors Integrated circuits Radio-frequency identification |
| Revenue | |
| Operating income | |
| Net income | |
| Total assets | |
| Total equity | |
| Employees | 35,100 (Sept 2011) |
| Website | TI.com |
| References: [2][3] | |
Coordinates: 32°54′33″N 96°45′04″W / 32.909256°N 96.751054°W
Texas Instruments Inc. (NYSE: TXN), widely known as TI, is an American company based in Dallas, Texas, United States,[4] which develops and commercializes semiconductor and computer technology. TI is the third largest manufacturer of semiconductors worldwide[5] after Intel and Samsung, the second largest supplier of chips for cellular handsets after Qualcomm, and the largest producer of digital signal processors (DSPs) and analog semiconductors, among a wide range of other semiconductor products.[6] After the acquisition of National Semiconductor in 2011, the company has a combined portfolio of nearly 45,000 analog products, customer design tools.[7] In 2011, Texas Instruments ranked 175 in the Fortune 500.
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Texas Instruments was founded by Cecil H. Green, J. Erik Jonsson, Eugene McDermott, and Patrick E. Haggerty in 1951. McDermott was one of the original founders of Geophysical Service in 1930. McDermott, Green, and Jonsson were GSI employees who purchased the company in 1941 on the day before Pearl Harbor was attacked. In November, 1945, Patrick Haggerty was hired as general manager of the Laboratory and Manufacturing (L&M) division. By 1951, the L&M division, with its defense contracts, was growing faster than GSI's Geophysical division. The company was reorganized and initially renamed General Instruments Inc. Because there already existed a firm named General Instrument, the company was rechristened Texas Instruments that same year. Geophysical Service Inc. became a subsidiary of Texas Instruments which it remained until early 1988, when most of GSI was sold to the Halliburton Company.
Texas Instruments exists to create, make and market useful products and services to satisfy the needs of its customers throughout the world.[8]
— Patrick Haggerty, Texas Instruments Statement of Purpose
In 1930, Dr. J. Clarence Karcher and Eugene McDermott founded Geophysical Service, an early provider of seismic exploration services to the petroleum industry. In 1939 the company reorganized as Coronado Corp., an oil company with Geophysical Service Inc (GSI), now as a subsidiary. On December 6, 1941, McDermott along with three other GSI employees, J. Erik Jonsson, Cecil H. Green, and H.B. Peacock purchased GSI. During World War II, GSI expanded their services to include electronics for the U.S. Army, Signal Corps, and the U.S. Navy. In 1951 the company changed its name to Texas Instruments, GSI becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of the new company.
An early success story for TI-GSI came in the 1950s 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.[citation needed]
Texas Instruments 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.
Texas Instruments was also active in the defense electronics market starting in 1942 with submarine detection equipment, building on the seismic exploration technology developed for the oil industry. This business was known over time as the Laboratory & Manufacturing Division, the Apparatus Division, the Equipment Group and the Defense Systems & Electronics Group (DSEG).
During the early 80s Texas Instruments instituted a quality program which included Juran training, as well as promoting Statistical process control, Taguchi methods and Design for Six Sigma. In the late 80s, the company, along with Eastman Kodak and Allied Signal, began involvement with Motorola institutionalizing Motorola's Six Sigma methodology.[9] Motorola, who originally developed the Six Sigma methodology, began this work in 1982. In 1992 the DSEG division of Texas Instruments' quality improvement efforts were rewarded by winning the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for manufacturing.
The following are some of the major programs of the former TI defense group.[10]
In 1956 TI began research on infrared technology that led to several line scanner contracts and with the addition of a second scan mirror the invention of the first forward looking infrared (FLIR) in 1963 with production beginning in 1966. In 1972 TI invented the Common Module FLIR concept, greatly reducing cost and allowing reuse of common components.
TI went on to produce side-looking radar systems, the first terrain following radar and surveillance radar systems for both the military and FAA. TI demonstrated the first solid-state radar called Molecular Electronics for Radar Applications (MERA). In 1976 TI developed a microwave landing system prototype. In 1984 TI developed the first inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR). The first single-chip gallium arsenide radar module was developed. In 1991 the Military Microwave Integrated Circuit (MIMIC) program was initiated – a joint effort with Raytheon.[citation needed]
In 1961 TI won the guidance and control system contract for the defense suppression AGM-45 Shrike anti-radiation missile. This led later to the prime on the high-speed anti-radiation missile (AGM-88 HARM) development contract in 1974 and production in 1981.
In 1964 TI began development of the first laser guidance system for precision-guided munitions (PGM) leading to the Paveway series of laser-guided bombs (LGB)s. The first LGB was the BOLT-117.
In 1969 TI won the Harpoon (missile) Seeker contract. In 1986 TI won the Army FGM-148 Javelin fire-and-forget man portable anti-tank guided missile in a joint venture with Martin Marietta. In 1991 TI was awarded the contract for the AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW).
Because of TI's dominance in military temperature range (silicon) transistors and integrated circuits (ICs), TI won contracts for the first IC-based computer for the U.S. Air Force in 1961 and for ICs for the Minuteman Missile the following year. In 1968 TI developed the data systems for Mariner Program. In 1991 TI won the F-22 Radar and Computer development contract.
As the defense industry consolidated, TI sold its defense business to Raytheon in 1997 for $2.95 billion. The Department of Justice required that Raytheon divest the TI Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MMIC) operations after closing the transaction.[11] The TI MMIC business accounted for less than $40 million in 1996 revenues, or roughly two percent of the $1.8 billion in total TI defense revenues was sold to TriQuint Semiconductor, Inc. Raytheon retained its own existing MMIC capabilities and has the right to license TI's MMIC technology for use in future product applications from TriQuint.[12]
Shortly after Raytheon acquired TI DSEG, Raytheon then acquired Hughes Aircraft from General Motors Raytheon then owned TI's Mercury Cadmium Telluride detector business and Infrared (IR) systems group. In California, it also had Hughes infrared detector and an IR systems business. When again the US government forced Raytheon to divest itself of a duplicate capability, the company kept the TI IR systems business and the Hughes detector business. As a result of these acquisitions these former arch rivals of TI systems and Hughes detectors work together.[13]
Immediately after acquisition, DSEG was known as Raytheon TI Systems (RTIS).[14] It is now fully integrated into Raytheon and this designation no longer exists.
Early in 1952 Texas Instruments purchased a patent license to produce (germanium) transistors from Western Electric Co., the manufacturing arm of AT&T, for $25 000. By the end of that year, it was already manufacturing and selling them. TI Vice President Patrick Haggerty was the visionary at TI who realized the future of this technology in the electronics industry. Later that year responding to an ad in the New York Times for a research director, Gordon K. Teal was hired by Haggerty. Teal, who worked for Bell Labs at Murray Hill, New Jersey but was from Dallas, desired to return to his native Texas.
Teal started at TI on January 1, 1953, bringing with him his expertise in growing semiconductor crystals. Haggerty had hired him to establish a team of scientists and engineers to keep TI at the leading edge of the new and rapidly expanding semiconductor industry. Teal's first assignment was to organize what became TI's Central Research Laboratories (CRL). Because of Teal's background, this new department was based on Bell Labs.
Among his new hires was Willis Adcock who joined TI early in 1953. Adcock, who like Teal was a physical chemist, began leading a small research group focused on the task of fabricating "grown-junction silicon single-crystal small-signal transistors. Adcock later became the first TI Principal Fellow.[15]
In January 1954, M Tanenbaum et al. at Bell Labs created the first workable silicon transistor.[16] This work was reported in the spring of 1954 at the IRE off-the-record conference on Solid State Devices and later published in the Journal of Applied Physics, 26, 686-691(1955). Working independently in April 1954, Gordon Teal at TI created the first commercial silicon transistor and tested it on April 14, 1954. On May 10, 1954 at the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) National Conference on Airborne Electronics, in Dayton, Ohio. Teal also presented a paper, "Some Recent Developments in Silicon and Germanium Materials and Devices," at this conference.[17]
In 1954, Texas Instruments designed and manufactured the first transistor radio. The Regency TR-1 used germanium transistors, as silicon transistors were much more expensive at the time. This was an effort by Haggerty to increase market demand for transistors.
Jack Kilby, an employee at TI's Central Research Labs, invented the integrated circuit in 1958. Kilby recorded his initial ideas concerning the integrated circuit in July 1958 and successfully demonstrated the world's first working integrated circuit on September 12, 1958.[18] Six months later Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor (who went on to co-found Intel) independently developed the integrated circuit with integrated interconnect, and is also considered an inventor of the integrated circuit.[19] Kilby won the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics for his part of the invention of the integrated circuit.[20] Noyce's chip, made at Fairchild, was made of silicon, while Kilby's chip was made of germanium. In 2008 TI named its new development laboratory "Kilby Labs" after Jack Kilby.[21]
In 2011, Intel, Samsung, LG, ST-Ericsson, Huawei's HiSilicon Technologies subsidiary, Via Telecom and three other undisclosed chipmakers licensed the C2C link specification developed by Arteris Inc. and Texas Instruments.[22]
The 7400 series of transistor-transistor logic (TTL) chips, developed by Texas Instruments in the 1960s, popularized the use of integrated circuits in computer logic. The military grade version of this was the 5400 series.[citation needed]
Texas Instruments invented the hand-held calculator in 1967 (they cost $2,500 each) and the single-chip microcomputer in 1971, and was assigned the first patent on a single-chip microprocessor (invented by Gary Boone) on September 4, 1973.[23] This was disputed by Gilbert Hyatt, formerly of the Micro Computer Company, in August 1990 when he was awarded a patent superseding TI's. This was over-turned on June 19, 1996 in favor of TI.[24] (Note: Intel is usually given credit with Texas Instruments for the almost-simultaneous invention of the microprocessor.)
In 1978, Texas Instruments introduced the first single-chip LPC speech synthesizer.[25] In 1976 TI began a feasibility study memory intensive applications for bubble memory then being developed. They soon focused on speech applications. This resulted in the development the TMC0280 one-chip Linear predictive coding (LPC) speech synthesizer which was the first time a single silicon chip had electronically replicated the human voice.[10][26] This was used in several TI commercial products beginning with Speak & Spell which was introduced at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show in June 1978. In 2001 TI left the speech synthesis business, selling it to Sensory Inc. of Santa Clara, California.[27]
In May 1954, Texas Instruments designed and built a prototype of the world's first transistor radio, and, through an partnership with Industrial Development Engineering Associates (I.D.E.A.) of Indianapolis, Indiana, the 100% solid-state radio was sold to the public beginning in November of that year.
TI continued to be active in the consumer electronics market through the 1970s and 1980s. Early on this also included two digital clock models one for desk and the other a bedside alarm. From this sprang what became the Time Products Division with the LED watches. Though these LED watches enjoyed early commercial success thanks to excellent quality, it was short lived due to poor battery life. LEDs were replaced with LCD watches for a short time but these could not compete because of styling issues, excessive makes and models, and price points. The watches were manufactured in Dallas and then Lubbock Texas. In 1978, Texas Instruments introduced the first single chip speech synthesizer and incorporated it in a product called Speak & Spell, which was later immortalized in the movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Several spin-offs, such as the Speak & Read and Speak & Math, were introduced soon thereafter.
In 1979, TI entered the home computer market with the TI99/4, a competitor to such entries as the Apple II, Tandy/RadioShack TRS-80 and the later Atari 400/800 series, 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 waged primarily against Commodore. 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 DOS and x86-based—but non-compatible—competitors to the IBM PC. (The founders of Compaq, an early leader in PC compatibles, 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.
Texas Instruments was active in the 1980s in the area of artificial intelligence. It developed and sold the Explorer computer family of LISP machines. For the Explorer a special 32bit LISP microprocessor was developed, which was used in the Explorer II and the TI MicroExplorer (a LISP Machine on a NuBus board for the Apple Macintosh).
Texas Instruments was a major OEM of sensor, control, protection, and RFID products for the automotive, appliance, aircraft, and other industries. The S&C division was headquartered in Attleboro, Massachusetts.
In 2006, Bain Capital LLC, a private equity firm, purchased the Sensors & Controls division for $3.0 billion in cash.[28] The RFID portion of the division remained part of TI, transferring to the Application Specific Products business unit of the Semiconductor division, with the newly formed independent company based in Attleboro taking the name Sensata Technologies.
TI sold its software division (along with its main product, the IEF) to Sterling Software in 1997. It is now part of Computer Associates. TI still owns small pieces of software though, i.e. software for calculators like TI Interactive!. TI also creates a significant amount of target software for its Digital Signal Processors, along with host based tools for creating DSP applications.
Today, TI is made up of two main divisions: Semiconductors (SC) and Educational Technology (ET).
Semiconductor products account for approximately 96 percent of TI's revenues. TI's semiconductor-related product areas include 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.
TI’s Wireless Business Unit (WBU) produces wireless solutions for products such as smartphones and eBooks, tablets, consumer electronics and other portable devices. Wireless communications has been a primary focus for TI, with around 50 percent of all cellular phones sold worldwide containing TI chips.[citation needed]
The Mixed Signal Automotive group is a business unit that manufactures mixed signal and analog solutions for transportation and automotive applications. In the power space, this unit produces DC/DC Controllers and Converters, LDOs (Low Dropout Voltage Regulators), Voltage References and Voltage Supervisors. In the networking space, MSA has solutions for CAN and LIN. Safety-related solutions include airbags and anti-lock braking.
Digital Light Processing is a trademark under which Texas Instruments sells technology regarding TVs, video projectors and digital cinema[29] : on February 2, 2000, Philippe Binant, technical manager of Digital Cinema Project at Gaumont in France, realized the first digital cinema projection in Europe[30] with the DLP CINEMA technology developed by TI.
Another business unit of the Semiconductor division called Application Specific Products (ASP) develops specific products that cater to a broad range of DSP applications, such as digital still cameras, cable modems, Voice over IP (VOIP), streaming media, speech compression and recognition, wireless LAN and gateway products (residential and central office), and RFID.
TI makes a broad range of digital signal processors and a suite of tools called eXpressDSP, used to develop applications on these chips.
Texas Instruments maintains several lines of microcontrollers, including:[31]
In the past, TI has also sold microcontrollers based on ARM7 (TMS470) and 8051 cores.
In addition to its microcontrollers, Texas Instruments also produces several multi-core processor lines.
TI has always been among the Top 10 of the semiconductor sales leaders[citation needed]. In 2005, TI was number 3, after Intel and Samsung, and ahead of Toshiba and STMicroelectronics. For more information, refer to the Semiconductor sales leaders by year. Some of its main competitors include Microchip Technology, Cypress Semiconductor, Integrated Device Technology, Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics, and Xilinx.
TI has the largest market share in the analog semiconductor industry which has an estimated market TAM exceeding US$37 Billion. TI is reported to have 14% of the market, leading ahead of competitors ST Microelectronics, Infineon and NXP Semiconductors according to latest reports[32] from Gartner.
Texas Instruments produces a range of calculators, with 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 (with the TI-84 Plus being an updated equivalent).
In the 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.[33]
Around the same time that these programs were first being written, personal web pages 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.[34]
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.
Both these lines of calculators are locked by TI to disable use of custom flash applications and custom operating systems (standard applications are however freely usable), through the signing of this software, with checks in the hardware. However the keys used were found by brute force and published in 2009. TI responded by sending invalid DMCA takedown notices, causing the Texas Instruments signing key controversy. However, at least one of the receivers filed a DMCA Section 512 counter-notice, to which TI has not responded, and the keys are now available again. Enthusiasts had already been creating their own operating systems before the finding of the keys, which could be installed with other methods.[35]
In 2007, TI released the TI-Nspire family of calculators, as well as computer software that has similar capabilities to the calculators.
There is an ongoing debate among financial calculator fans as to whether the TI BA II Plus is superior to the Hewlett Packard HP-12C from 1981.[citation needed] The TI BA II Plus continues to maintain popularity due to its simple and intuitive layout compared to the HP 12c (which uses reverse polish notation). The TI BA II Plus and the TI BA II Plus Professional version are two of only four calculators permissible in the Chartered Financial Analyst exams (the others being the HP-12C and the HP-12C Platinum).[36]
There are many TI calculators still selling without graphing capabilities.[37] The TI-30 has been replaced by the TI-30X IIS. There are some financial calculators for sale on the TI website.
In 2007, Texas Instruments was awarded the Manufacturer of the Year for Global Supply Chain Excellence by World Trade magazine.[38]
In five consecutive years (2007 through 2011), TI made it to the list of most ethical companies in the world,[39][40][41][42][43] compiled by Ethisphere Institute. TI is the only company to appear in all five years' lists in the Electronics/Semiconductor category.
A more complete list of TI's awards and recognition can be found at the Texas Instruments website.[44]
On April 4, 2011, Texas Instruments announced that it has agreed to buy National Semiconductor for $6.5 billion in cash. Texas Instruments will pay $25 per share of National Semiconductor stock. This is an 80% premium over the share price of $14.07 as of April 4, 2011 close. The deal made Texas Instruments one of the world's largest makers of analog technology components.[3][53][54][55][56] On September 19, 2011, the Chinese minister approved the merger, the last approval required. The companies formally merged on September 23, 2011.[57]
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