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July 30, 2008

Texas Instruments has expanded the manufacturing of its mobile phone chips into unconventional consumer and industrial devices.

In February, TI announced four new chips for its OMAP-3 architecture although only the low-end 3503 shipped at that time.

Now others are available: the 3515 with 3-D mapping and an update user interface, the 3525 with picture-in-picture support and the 3530 model with all three of those features.

The OMAP3503, OMAP3515, OMAP3525 and OMAP3530 CPUs are priced in units of 100 at $25.95, $29.23, $43.49 and $48.34, respectively. The video kit is $1,495.

Expanding even more from the chips’ wireless roots, Texas Instruments said it’s supporting this technology in the new open-source electronics design kit, called the Beagle Board, sold via Digi-Key.

More TI chips in the series will probably arrive later in 2008 or early in 2009, product marketing manager Kevin Hawkins said. Those will target more for automation and industrial applications that also require cellular connections.

A software developer kit for using the OMAP chips with digital video applications is also now available.

Such a product line could continue for 7 to 10 years – after all, he noted, Texas Instruments still ships some digital signal processors that it designed in the 1980s.

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Source: Texas Instruments.