Electronics Weekly asks Rich Templeton, CEO of Texas Instruments, his views on industry and technology trends 

Between 1960 and 1987 TI was the world’s number one semiconductor company measured by revenues, a feat unsurpassed in the industry’s history. Could TI be number one again? If yes, when?

Our goal is to be the world’s first choice for semiconductor technology. That means offering products with the best performance at the greatest value - and being able to deliver exactly what customers need when they need it.
To make this happen, we’re absolutely committed to investing in manufacturing, process technology, and R&D. We spent $2bn in R&D last year, and we’re increasing that number for 2006. We maintain state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities close to our customers, all over the world, and we’ve built a global support network that enables us to respond quickly to customers anywhere they are. These are the things, we believe, that will keep customers choosing TI, so that’s where we’re focused.

Can TI maintain its independence in process development and 300mm fab ownership through the 45nm and 32nm process generations?

Yes. Because process technology development is one of our greatest strengths, and investing in it has made us better able to meet the needs of our customers. TI is one of the few companies with the resources to invest in silicon process technology.
We’ve demonstrated time and time again that we can ramp to high volume and get the latest technology to market quickly. That’s what our customers need, so that’s what we’ll continue to do.

We don’t completely go it alone, though. We work closely with industry consortia, like IMEC in Belgium and a number of university research programmes, to stay connected to the latest research developments around the world. But by developing our own processes in-house, we’ve been able to ramp quickly in 90nanometer and 65nanometer production. We recently announced plans for our 45nm technology and we’re already working to get to the next node.

Will the DSP ever become a more valuable industry product segment than the microprocessor? If so, when?

Our customers place value on the technologies that enable them to innovate. Today, a big part of that innovation is happening around communications and entertainment, because those are the kinds of devices consumers are buying.

Computers and microprocessors will continue to be important, but they’re not dominating the consumer electronics landscape like they once were. Last year, 800 million mobile phones - which run on DSPs - were sold around the world. That’s about four times the number of PCs. And with emerging markets, like India and China, discovering the benefits of on-the-go communication, we’re going to continue to see growth in cellular demand.

And it’s not just mobile phones that are driving the need for DSPs. When you consider the number of personal communications and entertainment devices our kids are using - iPods, video games, mobile phones, digital TV - which all rely on DSP technology, you can see the huge role DSPs have to play, now and in the future.

When will self-organising molecules and atoms become the fundamental technology underpinning the semiconductor industry?

There is a $225bn industry based on silicon technology. The shift from silicon to another technology will happen when the physical challenges have been mastered and it becomes an affordable, stable solution. I’ll leave it to material research scientists and universities to look into their crystal ball and tell us when.

The US semiconductor industry has not grown for ten years. Is this a permanent state of affairs? If no, when and why will it change?

I can’t predict what the US market is going to do, but I can say that the global semiconductor market right now is going strong. While the US market may have flattened, semiconductor sales worldwide have doubled since 1998, with Asia leading the charge.

Part of what makes the semiconductor industry so exciting and challenging is that it’s dynamic and truly global. We can’t just stay focused on the US - or any other one region - because many of our customers maintain global operations, and new markets are always emerging.

Today, we’re seeing dramatic growth in Asia, but in the future, we may see the same kind of growth in Latin America. We’re determined to support our customers, wherever they’re located.