Giving you the semiconductor solutions you need for today's wireless communications designs is what it takes to play in the marketplace today. Making sure you will have what you need for tomorrow's innovation is what it will take to win into the next century.
That's why TI has a detailed Digital Signal Processor (DSP) Solutions roadmap on the drawing board. It reiterates our commitment to greater integration, lower system cost, improved power conservation and extra functionality for wireless communications products.
Start with DSP cores, the backbone in most digital cellular phones. TI's TMS320C54x DSPs, including the newly introduced 'C545 and 'C546, provide a range of devices optimized for wireless terminals and base stations. TI will continue to refine DSP technology to reduce power and increase performance, introducing products to meet wireless market demands.
TI also has begun development of mixed-signal devices optimized for various wireless standards. TI plans to introduce devices that provide the baseband interface for receive and transmit in a single chip, cutting in half the number of semiconductors needed for these functions today.
Already announced is the development of a device for the widely used IS-54B standard. TI has now disclosed plans for similar chips to work with the IS-136 and the GSM standards. The IS-136 device adds digital control channels to the IS-54B interface, making it suitable for use with either the IS-54B or IS-136 standard. Plans are in place for the GSM chip to incorporate voiceband audio processing, boosting system performance and eliminating the need for a stand-alone voice band audio processor (VBAP).
Leveraging more than 30 years of RF technology development for commercial and military markets, TI is actively developing the technology for wireless as well. TI offers cost-effective CMOS and BiCMOS RF processes in adding the several production-ready, low-profile RF packages. TI's RF roadmap reaches the higher frequencies needed for emerging wireless systems as well as achieves higher levels of integration.
In software, TI is licensing modules that support virtually every wireless communications standard in use today. TI is licensing a variety of software to support development of several wireless communications applications, including full-rate and half-rate GSM vocoder modules and IS-54B system and vocoder software. TI will continue to develop a suite of software modules to support half-rate voice, enhanced full-rate voice and other variations on the standards as they emerge. We recently introduced the industry's first half-rate GSM vocoders modules.
TI offers complete solutions--silicon, tools and market commitment--for your wireless design needs today. And we have the map to help take you down the road to tomorrow.
October 1995, vol. 12, no. 7