Winning in emerging markets with TI’s Customer Choice Third-Party Network

By Eric Dewannain, WW DSP New Business Development Manager

As a systems developer in today’s fast-moving market, you don’t need to be told how important it is to get your products on the shelves quickly. An incredible opportunity in an emerging market today can become a closed window in only a few months time.

Designers in some of today’s largest electronic markets, such as modems, mobile phones and hard disk drives, overwhelmingly choose TI DSP Solutions to power their designs. Why? Simple. TI DSP Solutions, which include leading-edge core DSP technology as well as the industry’s broadest array of third-party technologies, help customers get to market more quickly with less risk.

TI’s Customer Choice Third-Party Network vendors are playing an increasing role in giving companies the tools to succeed in tomorrow’s emerging markets. TI’s rapidly growing list of third-party companies currently features more than 1,400 products, which are important system building blocks. Complementary hardware development tools, software development tools, algorithms and libraries are some of the major ways third-party companies deliver to customers a more complete solution. In addition, the third-party network is designed to give customers the level of support they need and want, from full evaluation modules (EVMs) and reference designs to specific software algorithms. The benefit for companies is customized support that leads to reduced time-to-market in both well-developed and emerging markets such as voice-over packet, video imaging and digital still camera.

Beneficial relationships

Total solutions consist of chips, boards and software algorithms and libraries. Combined with consulting and training expertise, they are the building blocks that form the structure of a system. From TI’s perspective, Customer Choice Third-Party Network members provide the special blocks that add essential functionality for making the system come together. The reason this network is so large and comprehensive is also simple. Third-party companies know that TI DSP Solutions are by far the most powerful and popular in the industry, therefore, they can reach a larger customer base by designing products for TMS320 DSP Solutions. TI’s chips give third parties the raw processing power and the customer support that make their products more desirable to systems developers. This mutually beneficial relationship creates a "value web" that provides significant advantages for leading-edge customers.

Customer benefits

Some of the most immediate advantages of the Customer Choice Third-Party Network include:

Faster time-to-market. To coin a phrase, time-to-market is the name of the game, and TI and its third parties offer important ways of narrowing the gap from design conception to design delivery. For example, Technosoft is providing both catalog and custom algorithms for digital motor control and system-level development tools such as MCK240 and ACPM750. Another example is Softronics in Australia, which is providing DSP development tools and evaluation boards, including the MDS240, a versatile modular motor development platform featuring a TMS320F240 DSP. Both companies are providing direct customer support to decrease the time-to-market.

Reduced investment risk. To design and build a product from scratch not only takes time, but it also takes considerable resources — expensive resources such as new designers and new equipment. Third-party solutions reduce or eliminate the risk of entering a new market because much of the work has already been done, freeing designers to build their own value-added differentiators into the system.

Expertise. When customers use TI’s Customer Choice Third-Party Network tools, they have virtual access to the brightest minds in many market areas.

TI is the industry leader, so other industry leaders — like TI’s third-party network companies — want to build products around TI DSP Solutions. This means end customers don’t have to go out and find the experts they need to help develop an application. It is as simple as checking the Third-Party Resource Guide on the TI website at www.ti-dsp.com to find a solutions provider.

Putting it all together

At TI, being the market leader means more than selling more silicon than anyone else. It means providing all of the resources customers need to get products in production quickly and successfully in their markets — in both today’s and tomorrow’s emerging markets. TI’s industry-leading Customer Choice Third-Party Network is a primary way customers can achieve these goals.