Texas Instruments in the context of Geophysical Service Incorporated

The semiconductor industry is the aggregate of companies engaged in the design and fabrication of semiconductors and semiconductor devices, such as transistors and integrated circuits. Its roots can be traced to the invention of the transistor by Shockley, Brattain, and Bardeen at Bell Labs in 1948. Bell Labs licensed the technology for $25,000, and soon many companies, including Motorola (1952), Shockley Semiconductor (1955), Sylvania, Centralab, Fairchild Semiconductor and Texas Instruments were making transistors. In 1958 Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce of Fairchild independently invented the Integrated Circuit, a method of producing multiple transistors on a single "chip" of Semiconductor material. This kicked off a number of rapid advances in fabrication technology leading to the exponential growth in semiconductor device production, known as Moore's law that has persisted over the past six or so decades. The industry's annual semiconductor sales revenue has since grown to over $481 billion, as of 2018.

In 2010, the semiconductor industry had the highest intensity of Research & Development in the EU and ranked second after Biotechnology in the EU, United States and Japan combined.

Digital light processing (DLP) is a set of chipsets based on optical micro-electro-mechanical technology that uses a digital micromirror device. It was originally developed in 1987 by Larry Hornbeck of Texas Instruments. While the DLP imaging device was invented by Texas Instruments, the first DLP-based projector was introduced by Digital Projection Ltd in 1997. Digital Projection and Texas Instruments were both awarded Emmy Awards in 1998 for the DLP projector technology.

DLP technology is used in DLP front projectors (standalone projection units for classrooms and business primarily), DLP rear projection television sets, and digital signs. It was also used in about 85% of digital cinema projection as of around 2011, and in additive manufacturing as a light source in some printers to cure resins into solid 3D objects.

Compaq Computer Corporation was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced some of the first IBM PC compatible computers, being the second company after Columbia Data Products to legally reverse engineer the BIOS of the IBM Personal Computer. It rose to become the largest supplier of PC systems during the 1990s. The company was initially based in Harris County, Texas.

The company was formed by Rod Canion, Jim Harris, and Bill Murto, all of whom were former Texas Instruments senior managers. All three had left the company in 1991 due to an internal shakeup, and saw Eckhard Pfeiffer appointed as president and CEO, who served throughout the 1990s. Ben Rosen provided the venture capital financing for the fledgling company and served as chairman of the board for 17 years from 1983 until September 28, 2000, when he retired and was succeeded by Michael Capellas, who served as its last chairman and CEO until its merger.

An IBM PC compatible is any personal computer that is hardware- and software-compatible with the IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC) and its subsequent models. Like the original IBM PC, an IBM PC–compatible computer uses an x86-based central processing unit, sourced either from Intel or a second source like AMD, Cyrix or other vendors such as Texas Instruments, Fujitsu, OKI, Mitsubishi or NEC and is capable of using interchangeable commodity hardware such as expansion cards. Initially such computers were referred to as PC clones, IBM clones or IBM PC clones, but the term "IBM PC compatible" is now a historical description only, as the vast majority of microcomputers produced since the 1990s are IBM compatible. IBM itself no longer sells personal computers, having sold its division to Lenovo in 2005. "Wintel" is a similar description that is more commonly used for modern computers.

The designation "PC", as used in much of personal computer history, has not meant "personal computer" generally, but rather an x86 computer capable of running the same software that a contemporary IBM or Lenovo PC could. The term was initially in contrast to the variety of home computer systems available in the early 1980s, such as the Apple II, TRS-80, and Commodore 64. Later, the term was primarily used in contrast to Commodore's Amiga and Apple's Macintosh computers.

IEEE 1394 is an interface standard for a serial bus for high-speed communications and isochronous real-time data transfer. It was developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s by Apple in cooperation with a number of companies, primarily Sony and Panasonic. It is most commonly known by the name FireWire (Apple), though other brand names exist such as i.LINK (Sony), and Lynx (Texas Instruments). Most consumer electronics manufacturers phased out IEEE 1394 from their product lines in the 2010s.

The copper cable used in its most common implementation can be up to 4.5 m (15 ft) long. Power and data is carried over this cable, allowing devices with moderate power requirements to operate without a separate power supply. FireWire is also available in Cat 5 and optical fiber versions.

The Open Handset Alliance (OHA) was a consortium led by Google that develops the Android mobile operating system. Its member firms included HTC, Sony, Dell, Intel, Motorola, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics (formerly), T-Mobile, Nvidia, and Wind River Systems.

The OHA was established on November 5, 2007, with 34 members, including mobile handset makers, application developers, some mobile network operators and chip makers. As part of its efforts to promote a unified Android platform, OHA members are contractually forbidden from producing devices that are based on competing forks of Android. While not officially stated, the alliance has remained dormant, with many OHA partners having moved out of the smartphone market.

The AGM-88 HARM (High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile) is a tactical, air-to-surface anti-radiation missile designed to home in on electronic transmissions coming from surface-to-air radar systems. It was originally developed by Texas Instruments as a replacement for the AGM-45 Shrike and AGM-78 Standard ARM system. Production was later taken over by Raytheon Corporation when it purchased the defense production business of Texas Instruments.

An EPROM (rarely EROM), or erasable programmable read-only memory, is a type of programmable read-only memory (PROM) chip that retains its data when its power supply is switched off. Computer memory that can retrieve stored data after a power supply has been turned off and back on is called non-volatile. It is an array of floating-gate transistors individually programmed by an electronic device that supplies higher voltages than those normally used in digital circuits. Once programmed, an EPROM can be erased by exposing it to strong ultraviolet (UV) light source (such as from a mercury-vapor lamp). EPROMs are easily recognizable by the transparent fused quartz (or on later models, resin) window on the top of the package, through which the silicon chip is visible, and which permits exposure to ultraviolet light during erasing. It was invented by Dov Frohman in 1971.

Jack St. Clair Kilby (November 8, 1923 – June 20, 2005) was an American electrical engineer who took part, along with Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor, in the realization of the first integrated circuit while working at Texas Instruments (TI) in 1958. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics on December 10, 2000.

Kilby was also the co-inventor of the handheld calculator and the thermal printer, for which he had the patents. He also had patents for seven other inventions.

The digital micromirror device, or DMD, is the microoptoelectromechanical system (MOEMS) that is the core of the trademarked Digital Light Processing (DLP) projection technology from Texas Instruments (TI). The device is used in digital projectors and consists of an array of millions of microscopic mirrors which can be individually tilted many thousand times per second, thereby creating the pixels of the projected images.

Larry J. Hornbeck (born September 17, 1943) is an American physicist and inventor of the digital micromirror device (DMD). He took part in the development of the DLP cinema technology while working at Texas Instruments (TI).

The DragonBall, or MC68328, is a microcontroller design based on the 68000 core, but implemented as an all-in-one 3.3v low-power system for handheld computer use. It is supported by μClinux. It was designed by Motorola in Hong Kong and released in 1995. The series was later owned by Freesale Semiconductor.

The DragonBall's major design win was in numerous devices running the Palm OS platform. However, from Palm OS 5 onwards their use was superseded by ARM-based processors from Texas Instruments and Intel.

The Motorola 68000 series (also known as 680x0, m68000, m68k, or 68k) is a family of 32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessors. During the 1980s and early 1990s, they were popular in personal computers and workstations and were the primary competitors of Intel's x86 microprocessors. They were best known as the processors used in the early Apple Macintosh, the Sharp X68000, the Commodore Amiga, the Sinclair QL, the Atari ST and Falcon, the Atari Jaguar, the Sega Genesis (Mega Drive) and Sega CD, the Philips CD-i, the Capcom System I (Arcade), the AT&T UNIX PC, the Tandy Model 16/16B/6000, the Sun Microsystems Sun-1, Sun-2 and Sun-3, the NeXT Computer, NeXTcube, NeXTstation, and NeXTcube Turbo, early Silicon Graphics IRIS workstations, the Aesthedes, computers from MASSCOMP, the Texas Instruments TI-89/TI-92 calculators, the Palm Pilot (all models running Palm OS 4.x or earlier), the Control Data Corporation CDCNET Device Interface, the VTech Precomputer Unlimited and the Space Shuttle. Although no modern desktop computers are based on processors in the 680x0 series, derivative processors are still widely used in embedded systems.

Motorola ceased development of the 680x0 series architecture in 1994, replacing it with the PowerPC RISC architecture, which was developed in conjunction with IBM and Apple Computer as part of the AIM alliance.

Flat Panel Display Link, more commonly referred to as FPD-Link, is the original high-speed digital video interface created in 1996 by National Semiconductor (now within Texas Instruments). It is a free and open standard for connecting the output from a graphics processing unit in a laptop, tablet computer, flat panel display, or LCD television to the display panel's timing controller.

Most laptops, tablet computers, flat-panel monitors, and TVs used the interface internally through 2010, when industry leaders AMD, Dell, Intel, Lenovo, LG, and Samsung together announced that they would be phasing out this interface by 2013 in favor of embedded DisplayPort (eDP).

TravelMate is a line of business-oriented laptop computers manufactured by Acer. Of the various notebook series Acer has offered, the TravelMate is designated as a lightweight business and professional computer built to withstand day-to-day activities. TravelMate laptops are well received by reviewers, often, however, they are faulted for a lack of visual appeal. The TravelMate name was previously used by Texas Instruments, which sold its mobile computing division to Acer in 1997. The TravelMate mainly competes against business computers such as Asus's ExpertBook, Dell's Latitude and Vostro, Fujitsu's LifeBook, HP's EliteBook and ProBook, Lenovo's ThinkPad and ThinkBook, and Toshiba's Portégé and Tecra.

MIPI Alliance is a global business alliance that develops technical specifications for the mobile ecosystem, particularly smart phones but including mobile-influenced industries. MIPI was founded in 2003 by Arm, Nokia, STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments.

Non-member organizations have limited access to MIPI standards, with some exceptions. The exceptions generally take the form of a public version of the standard. An example of one of these exceptions is the I3C Basic standard which requires no license from MIPI to implement.

National Semiconductor Corporation was an American semiconductor manufacturer, which specialized in analog devices and subsystems, formerly headquartered in Santa Clara, California. The company produced power management integrated circuits, display drivers, audio and operational amplifiers, communication interface products and data conversion solutions. National's key markets included wireless handsets, displays and a variety of broad electronics markets, including medical, automotive, industrial and test and measurement applications.

On September 23, 2011, the company formally became part of Texas Instruments as the "Silicon Valley" division.