TI Home 
Search Feedback 
Semiconductor Home
Imagine a world in which citizens of every country are better educated, healthier, more productive, better informed, better entertained and more communicative because of technology. Considering that some 75 percent of the world's population today have never placed a telephone call, much less used a computer, that vision is ambitious. It imagines trillions of dollars in new markets for the products and services needed to join cultures electronically.
Political and industry leaders focused on making this global "networked society" a reality at the G7 Conference, which met in Brussels in February. Known more formally as the Global Information Infrastructure (GII), the networked society envisions worldwide, affordable, high-speed communications linking virtually every individual to every other. Texas Instruments Chief Executive Officer Jerry Junkins was among an elite handful of business leaders asked to participate.
Because TI is not an end-equipment manufacturer, we're not often seen as being a major player in the move toward the networked society. But as the invitation to Jerry Junkins shows, silicon solutions must be considered as the world moves toward this vision.
As a leading maker of the GII's semiconductor building blocks, especially digital signal processing solutions (DSPS), TI will help shape the policies, the standards and the products that will make the networked society a reality.
Data compression and decompression, a major strength of DSPS technology, will be essential in building tomorrow's networks, especially in emerging nations. Many of those countries will bypass the construction of expensive, land line-based communications systems and go directly to wireless telephony.
To be effective and cost-efficient, wireless requires data compression to carry a maximum number of conversations on limited radio frequency bandwidth. Digital signal processors (DSPs) offer the best means of compressing and decompressing digital data. TI's mixed signal devices, including analog-to-digital converters, encode data for processing and decode it into information people can use. While compression/decompression is important in voice communication, it is even more vital to video applications envisioned for the networked society.
In 1994, we introduced the industry's most powerful DSPs, the TMS320C80 multimedia video processor that features four DSPs in a combination tailored to processing, transmitting and displaying video and audio data. TI also is investing in next-generation DSPs that will yield higher compression ratios for real-time broadcast television and video-on-demand applications.
To really serve the world's needs, GII communications must include a high degree of security. TI is a pioneer in such DSPs as speech recognition, which can provide access to services by recognizing a speaker's voice. Similar technology also permits hands-free dialing, voice activated telephone services, and verbal interaction with computer systems and digital data base systems.
Because interactivity and sophisticated graphics will be the key to the ease-of-use and enjoyment of digital services, TI is conducting research into the on-screen display areas of 3D acceleration, video warping, image rendering, video and graphics integration and concurrent video streams. Each of these advances will be built around DSPs.
TI also leads in development of other technological components of the GII. For example, the company is developing a family of products to facilitate asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) packaging of data to use phone lines more efficiently. ATM technology allows one phone line or PC network cable to carry data streams that otherwise would require several lines.
New video display systems, such as TI's digital micromirror display (DMD), will allow TV screens to grow as big as a wall and display images from a variety of information devices. Field emission displays, also being developed by TI, will use power efficiently enough to make full-color video practical for hand-held systems.
In addition to DSPs and other hardware solutions in which TI is leading the way, the company also helps to provide the software and the development tools manufacturers need to create products for the networked society. TI's Composer, an IEF software development tool, is designed for use by OEMs seeking to embed communications and computing features into everyday appliances.
We look forward to working with you in taking our products and technologies and making this global vision a reality.
April 1995, vol. 11, no.1