(May 27, 1999) - Texas Instruments Incorporated (NYSE: TXN) announced today that Nokia has chosen TI's Open Multimedia Application Platform to be used with Nokia's future wireless Information Devices. (WIDs). This platform will be optimized to run Symbian's EPOC technology. TI's open multimedia application platform is a flexible hardware and software platform that will offer the increased processing power required by advanced and future WIDs. This platform will also take into account the low power consumption required by WIDs, such as communicators and media phones.
"We are excited by the opportunities enabled by our DSP technology in this field. TI expertise in Processors optimized for Wireless Communications end-equipment, combined with our technological leadership, is opening up new frontiers in wireless applications," said Gilles Delfassy, Vice President, Texas Instruments, Worldwide Wireless Communications.
TI estimates that within five years the worldwide market for the advanced wireless information devices that can be enabled by TI DSP technology will reach 15 percent of the total digital cellular phone market. This represents annual revenues of more than a billion dollars for the DSP solution alone.
By integrating TI's platform into future wireless products, Nokia will be able to offer extensive data-hungry services such as audio and video-based applications in pocket-sized mobile devices in addition to mobile Internet access mobile commerce and mobile banking.
"Nokia will deploy this technology into its future Wireless Information Devices, and believes that the commitment and combined top-expertise of TI, Nokia and Symbian will provide an attractive base for Independent Software Vendor (ISV) and DSP software developers. We are happy to ensure that all the building blocks are coming together in devices that will provide consumers with a totally new set of attractive services, such as multimedia messaging and video on the move, " said Yrjö Neuvo, Senior Vice President, Product Creation, Nokia Mobile Phones.
"The convergence of communications and computing has given birth to a new market for Wireless Information Devices. TI's technology will provide an excellent base to build products and development boards well adapted to Symbian's EPOC technology," said Jeremy Copp, Vice President, Partner Management, Symbian.
TI will also make this platform available to other OEMs and third party developers to stimulate the growth of new applications in the wireless data market using Symbian's EPOC technology and to accelerate synergy around the open multimedia application platform. TI will support this platform with development chips, a software development kit and clearly defined Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). The APIs will be open and can be implemented by other vendors to ensure an attractive DSP accelerated multimedia environment for ISVs. .
This is the first time that TI will offer an embedded DSP - at 320MIPS -combined with an ARM RISC processor - at 130MHz - and high-speed dedicated logic-blocks on a single-chip, using 0.15 micron effective CMOS process technology. The new offering will provide software developers with a wealth of capabilities until now unavailable. On the hardware side, TI's open multimedia application platform is a complete set of building blocks consisting of complex megacells and peripherals which are characterized so that they may easily be connected and merged with a customer's own blocks.
Explained TI's Delfassy: "Providing application developers with such powerful processing capability on a single chip, in a design development environment they are familiar with, allows them to design new, high quality applications that will be able to run simultaneously. For consumers this kind of chip integration means these future wireless applications information will be available at affordable prices and the low-power consumption level demanded by these portable devices."
A preliminary tool set is now available for software designers to begin implementing applications. Customer design can start as early as this year for silicon samples next year.
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