TI's Mike Hames marks 25 Years of DSP Technology at Worldwide TI Developer Conference

In 1982, the world saw the first successful digital signal processor (DSP) - TI's TMS320C10. Almost 10 billion DSPs have shipped since the first DSP was introduced, according to Will Strauss, president of

industry analyst firm, Forward Concepts. Strauss adds TI has shipped half that number.



In the beginning, TI's TMS320T DSP family served hard disc drives and modems running at 2400 bits per second. Now 25 years later, DSPs power DSL modems at 1 megabit per second. Digital signal processing has revolutionized our lives on a daily basis, fostering the development of broadband communications, mobile phones, MP3 players, Voice-over-IP, and digital still cameras, demonstrating that DSP has evolved into the catalyst for innovation to make technologies never before conceived

ubiquitous. Hames is committed to advancing innovation to achieve similar results, making DSP an essential technology in additional markets over the coming 25 years.



Forward Concepts projects the DSP market will experience a 12 percent compound annual growth rate over the next five years. Strauss says, DSP technology is poised to deliver advancements far greater than those of the first 25 years and will make the world safer, smarter and more

connected than ever before. Digital signal processing is a catalyst for new markets and is triggered

by TI's DSP as the core technology that can be integrated with other devices, such as hardware accelerators, ARM cores and peripherals. The result is higher performing systems-on-chips (SoCs) optimized for their specific class of applications to expand the universe of unique and

exciting DSP-enabled products. These open, optimized SoCs possess the right software and development tools that allow a larger group of developers with a wider variety of expertise to add additional features and functionality to their designs. Existing application spaces will

continue to be revolutionized by advancing DSP technology; new applications will become a reality as quickly as they are conceived.



The potential for the next 25 years of digital signal processing is profound, as are the challenges it lays out for the industry. TI is working with customers to embrace these technical challenges, as

hundreds of processors will be integrated on a single, three-dimensional chip and large-scale, parallel processing becomes standard. As a result of these new innovations on the processor, the software and development tools will follow suit and be seamlessly integrated with all hardware.

Development tools must evolve to enable developers to write multiple tasks across multiple processors, and programming languages may need to change to accomplish this. With its expertise, technology and industry collaboration, TI is poised to address these challenges just as it has consistently conquered performance, power and price obstacles throughout the industry.



One of the biggest limitations we face as a society is our ability to imagine and accept new applications. There is no doubt digital signal processing technology will impact the exponential growth of new innovations quickly and elegantly, said Gene Frantz, principle fellow, TI. We are at a thrilling time in history, and life as we know it is about to change. It's already happening - with TI signal-processing technology our customers are making it possible.



The TI Developer Conference (TIDC) is the industry's leading annual event featuring the latest in advanced digital signal processing, high-performance analog and microcontroller system designs. TIDC

Worldwide 2007 is being held at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, Texas. The conference offers hands-on interaction and intensive educational sessions with cutting-edge products designed to empower the

development of the next-generation of video, audio, communications and

industrial applications.