TI Unveils High-Speed Chip For Analog-To-Digital Conversion
"It is the fastest known analog-to-digital converter for networks," said M. Harish, business development manager of Texas Instruments India.
The new chip, designed by TI's center in the southern Indian city of Bangalore, will be used in phone network base stations and in medical systems such as magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, he said.
The chip can satisfy the need for high-volume signal processing capability required for so-called "Third Generation," or 3G, wireless networks, Harish said.
Higher speed in a communications processor means the conversion of signals would be faster and more accurate.
The Bangalore center has designed hardware and software for the past 10 years for the Dallas-based chip manufacturer. It employs 900 computer engineers.
The center also designs processors for digital subscriber line, or DSL, technology, high-speed printing equipment and wireless networks.
In May, TI India announced the development of the world's first single chip for high-speed modems using a technology called Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line. Previously, DSL systems used a minimum of three processors.
Along with its recent hardware innovations, TI has been focusing on adding software features to its chips in recent years, adding software for mobile phone and personal digital assistants to its product line, said a top TI official.
"We are becoming more and more of a software company. India has a big role to play in it," Gene Frantz, Principal Fellow at TI, said.
Frantz was in Bangalore for a conference scheduled later this week for Indian software companies and programmers, organized by TI to promote its products.
In 1985, TI's Bangalore center became the first technology development center to be set up by a foreign company in India. This helped launch the city's booming software industry, which accounts for a fourth of India's US$10-billion annual export revenue.
Intel, Silicon Laboratories and IBM are among other companies that design chips in Bangalore.