This came out last night:
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Posted: 11:45 p.m., EDT, 7/2/98
TI prepares assault on high-speed data-converter market
By Stephan Ohr
DALLAS - After a long concentration on custom mixed-signal circuits, Texas Instruments Inc. is ramping up a frontal attack on the market for standard analog components. In the first of several planned product announcements, TI will introduce a series of high-speed data converters designed to carve out a niche in the area of 1 to 20 Msamples/second. In the future, the company will zero in on high-speed applications like cellular basestations and handsets.
"We want to be in the target areas for differentiated products with high resolution and speed," said Dan Reynolds, TI vice president and manager of the Advanced Analog Products Group.
Data converters are not a new thrust for the company. In 1997, TI established itself as the No. 1 supplier of analog and mixed-signal components, according to Dataquest Inc. (San Jose, Calif.). Much of its strength was in custom mixed-signal circuits for high-volume markets such cellular handsets, modems and disk-drive servos. Less well known is the fact that TI grew to No. 2, behind Analog Devices Inc. (ADI), in the market for standard data converters.
ADI (Norwood, Mass.) shipped approximately $416 million worth of data converter products in 1997, representing 28 percent of the market, said Jim Liang, senior market analyst at Dataquest. But those figures represent growth of only 6.4 percent over 1996 totals, in a year when other formidable players faded from view.
Philips Semiconductors, No. 3 in 1996 with $150 million in shipments, virtually vanished last year, reclassifying its data-converter output as "consumer electronics." Burr-Brown Corp., once ADI's archrival in military products, now ships between $57 million and $75 million worth of data converters, Dataquest estimates. National Semiconductor Corp. shipped about $42 million in data converters in 1997, and Maxim Integrated Products shipped an estimated $109 million.
contrast, TI's business grew 54 percent, from $150 million in 1996 to $231 million. Much of this can be attributed to a concerted effort in what analog manufacturers refer to as "catalog products" initiated in 1996 by Del Whittaker, vice president for mixed-signal products. The TI strategy - the same strategy that made it No. 1 in the market for mixed-signal products - is to partner with key players in major markets. Still, the company felt the need to expand its catalog-product offerings, Whittaker told EE Times during TI's financial analysts' meeting in March 1996.
Since then, the company has more than doubled its analog design team and made strategic investments in companies like Wolfson Electronics, a data-converter specialist in the U.K. The new products to be announced this week are among the most visible fruits of that effort.
The line supports TI's DSP strengths, said Reynolds. If DSP is, at its heart, digital manipulation of an analog signal, then something must be able to condition, capture and convert that signal before transmission. Many forthcoming converter parts are interface-compatible with TI's C2000, C5000 and C6000 series DSPs.
Among the attention getters is an analog-to-digital data converter with programmable resolution - the first of its kind, TI believes. The forthcoming TLV1562 features tradable speed and resolution. The part can resolve 4 to 10 bits with sampling rates ranging from 2 to 7 Msamples/s. The device consumes less than 7.8 mA from a 2.7-V supply (a run-down battery) and is targeted toward cell phones and PDAs.
The forthcoming TLV5619, meanwhile, is a 12-bit D/A converter and the similar TLV5613 is an 8+4 bit, designed to be compatible with an 8-bit microprocessor. These building blocks offer a 1-microsecond settling time. The company also makes video D/A converters with triple outputs (for RGB) and 8-bit flash converters with 30-Msample/s rates.
But faster parts are on the horizon. One of TI's engineers will give a paper next week at the EE Times Analog & Mixed-Signal Applications Conference in San Jose on the amplification techniques for 10- and 12-bit front ends of 60-MHz data converters. If TI introduces such a part, it would position the company as one of the few - next to Analog Devices and Signal Processing Technologies Inc. (Colorado Springs, Colo.) - capable of direct IF, digital radios.
After data converters, TI may be planning new thrusts in power-management devices.
"They're strongest in the linear business," said Dataquest's Liang. Though it ranks No. 3 behind National Semiconductor and Linear Technology Corp. in this market, TI's voltage-regulator business grew 85 percent, to $204 million, in 1997.>>>> |
