Texas Instruments hopes to lay out its low power credentials with a number of new low power devices in its four main DSP product families.

This is the latest in a number of product introductions by chipmakers addressing the industry’s move to greater power efficiency.

“Throughout recent years, customers big and small have approached TI with a focus on pure performance, but there has been a shift in the last year or so and developers' first question is now, 'This is my power budget; how can TI help me do more with it?'" said Gene Frantz, TI principal fellow.

TI, which has an ARM9 processor licence, plans over the next year or so to offer a number of embedded processor options squarely aimed at power savings.

At the head of the list is a 50% power reduction in its high-end DSPs with the TMS320C640x using half the power of existing TMS320C6000 devices. Power consumption is 6mW in deep-sleep mode and 415mW total power in active mode. This device will be available in early 2009.

The company is bringing out new devices in its low power TMS320C5000M DSP platform. The C550xM devices include an FFT coprocessor and power levels of 6.8µW in deep-sleep mode and 46mW total power in active mode. This is half the power of existing C5000 devices.

A new TMS320C674x DSP in Q4 2008 will see power consumption is as low as 6mW in deep-sleep mode and 420mW total power in active mode.

A new OMAP-L1x wireless applications processor line includes ARM9 and ARM9-plus-DSP architectures. Power consumption ranges from 6mW in deep-sleep mode to 435mW total power in active mode, and the devices will be available in early 2009.