Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American multinational semiconductor company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. It is one of the top 10 semiconductor companies worldwide based on sales volume. The company's focus is on developing analog chips and embedded processors, which account for more than 80% of its revenue. TI also produces digital light processing (DLP) technology and education technology products including calculators, microcontrollers, and multi-core processors. Texas Instruments emerged in 1951 from the reorganization of Geophysical Service Incorporated, a company founded in 1930 that manufactured equipment for the seismic industry and defense electronics. TI produced the world's first commercial silicon transistor in 1954, and the same year designed and manufactured the first transistor radio. Jack Kilby invented the integrated circuit in 1958 while working at TI's Central Research Labs. TI also invented the handheld calculator in 1967 and introduced the first single-chip microcontroller in 1970, combining all the elements of computing onto a single chip. In 1987, TI invented the digital light processing device (also known as the DLP chip), which serves as the foundation for the company's DLP technology and DLP Cinema. TI released the popular TI-81 calculator in 1990, which made it a leader in the graphing calculator industry. Its defense business was sold to Raytheon Company in 1997, allowing TI to strengthen its focus on digital solutions. After the acquisition of National Semiconductor in 2011, the company had a combined portfolio of 45,000 analog products and customer design tools.
History
Texas Instruments was founded by Cecil H. Green, J. Erik Jonsson, Eugene McDermott, and Patrick E. Haggerty in 1951. McDermott was one of the original founders of Geophysical Service Inc. (GSI) in 1930. McDermott, Green, and Jonsson were GSI employees who purchased the company in 1941. In November 1945, Patrick Haggerty was hired as general manager of the Laboratory and Manufacturing (L&M) division, which focused on electronic equipment. By 1951, the L&M division, with its defense contracts, was growing faster than GSI's geophysical division. The company was reorganized and initially renamed General Instruments Inc. Because a firm named General Instrument already existed, the company was renamed Texas Instruments that same year. From 1956 to 1961, Fred Agnich of Dallas, later a Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives, served as president of Texas Instruments. Geophysical Service, Inc. became a subsidiary of Texas Instruments. Early in 1988, most of GSI was sold to the Halliburton Company.
Texas Instruments exists to create, make, and market useful products and services to satisfy the needs of its customers throughout the world.
Geophysical Service Incorporated In 1930, J. Clarence Karcher and Eugene McDermott founded Geophysical Service, an early provider of seismic exploration services to the petroleum industry. In 1939, the company reorganized as Coronado Corp, an oil company with Geophysical Service Inc (GSI), now as a subsidiary. On December 6, 1941, McDermott along with three other GSI employees, J. Erik Jonsson, Cecil H. Green, and H. B. Peacock purchased GSI. During World War II, GSI expanded its services to include electronics for the U.S. Army, Army Signal Corps, and U.S. Navy. In 1951, the company changed its name to Texas Instruments, spun off to build seismographs for oil explorations and with GSI becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of the new company. An early success came for TI-GSI in 1965, when GSI was able (under a Top Secret government contract) to monitor the Soviet Union's underground nuclear weapons testing under the ocean in Vela Uniform, a subset of Project Vela, to verify compliance of the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Texas Instruments also continued to manufacture equipment for use in the seismic industry, and GSI continued to provide seismic services. After selling (and repurchasing) GSI, TI finally sold the company to Halliburton in 1988, after which sale GSI ceased to exist as a separate entity.
Semiconductors In early 1952, Texas Instruments purchased a patent license from Western Electric, the manufacturing arm of AT&T, to produce germanium transistors for US$25,000, beginning production by the end of the year. Haggerty brought Gordon Teal to the company due to his expertise in growing semiconductor crystals while at Bell Telephone Laboratories. Teal's first assignment was to direct TI's research laboratory. At the end of 1952, Texas Instruments announced that it had expanded to 2,000 employees and $17 million in sales. Among his new hires was Willis Adcock, who joined TI early in 1953. Adcock, who like Teal was a physical chemist, began leading a small research group focused on the task of fabricating grown-junction, silicon, single-crystal, small-signal transistors. Adcock later became the first TI Principal Fellow.
First silicon transistor and integrated circuits
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