"2011 started strong, with customer demand in January and February tracking our expectations for a first quarter of above-seasonal growth," said Rich Templeton, TI CEO. "But the Japan earthquake that's taken such a heartbreaking human toll in the country also disrupted local demand starting in mid-March and impaired operations at two of our factories there."

Taiwan's UMC will take the "lead role" in making the OMAP 5 device on a foundry basis for TI, said Kevin Ritchie, senior VP and manager of TI's technology and manufacturing group. For the OMAP 5, TI may work with other foundries, but Samsung does not appear to be one of the candidates. With the OMAP 4, TI has been "dissatisfied" with its foundry arrangement with Samsung, Ritchie said.

Apple's next-generation iPad contains chips made by Toshiba, Broadcom and Texas Instruments, according to an initial tear-down report by gadget-repair site iFixit. Toshiba supplied the device's storage chips, iFixit said, while Broadcom made the chips used for wireless Internet access. TI chips were used to control the iPad's touchscreen.

The TI OMAP 5 offers quad-core computing at up to 2GHz with power consumption barely breaking into double-digit wattage figures. In terms of raw figures, that level of performance is very near that of current Intel and AMD desktop chips.

Amid a loss and some US$454.0 million in disputed claims against the company, Spansion has raised its capital spending for 2011.

Texas Instruments has admitted that Nvidia beat it to market with the first dual-core processor for tablets. This is surprising statement from a company that has been in the business of building power-efficient chips based on the ARM design for close to two decades.

Texas Instruments has narrowed its fourth-quarter financial forecasts that match analysts' projection, citing higher demand for communications equipment.

The OMAP4430 chip will deliver double the performance of existing single-core chips from the OMAP3 family. This will allow applications to run faster on mobile devices, said Robert Tolbert, director of product management for the OMAP smartphone business at TI.

Texas Instruments has said weaker-than-expected orders from one mobile phone customer, identified as Nokia by some analysts, caused second-quarter revenues to miss Wall Street forecasts.

Analysts expect that it recovered to pre-recession levels in the just-ended quarter, as manufacturers ramp up production of electronics that use TI chips and build inventories.

TI now expects profits of US$0.60-0.64 per share in the current quarter. Revenue should be US$3.45-3.59 billion.

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) is still in talks with Texas Instruments (TI) about taking over the operation of a 200mm fab in Chengdu, China, according to sources.

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) has been talking to Texas Instruments (TI) about taking over operation of the government-owned factory, according to company sources. It was not immediately clear whether TI was interested in only taking over management of the facility, or in buying it as well.

Like many other chip makers, TI discovered that the cost of Moore's Law–industry shorthand for the race to shrink transistors on digital chips–is too costly for the payoff it brings. It began placing greater emphasis on manufacturing analog chips.

The potential sale of Qimonda's 300mm assets in Virginia to Texas Instruments (TI) confirms the opportunities in used 300 mm equipment identified in a study from Semico Research.

Texas Instruments has placed a bid of US$172.5 million on used 300mm equipment from the now-shuttered Qimonda fab near Richmond, Va. The Dallas-based company plans to use the equipment for 300mm analog production.

Texas Instruments (TI) could be interested in taking over Qimonda's US-based assets, writes news service swissinfo.ch.