As downward revisions of December quarter guidances flow as steadily as pink slips this month, reports are swirling of company-enacted manufacturing plant shutdowns in what seems to be a heavy trend compared to previous years. Samsung, Spansion, TI, and TSMC are among those reportedly shutting down manufacturing sites at the end of the year for up to three weeks. Such action is nothing new...

...In tests with TI the CC2591 has boosted outdoor range for a Zigbee radio as much as ten-fold to 1.5 miles. The chip integrates a group of mainly passive components including a power amplifier, low-noise amplifier, balun, switches, inductors and RF-matching devices.

Luminus and TI have created lamp-free projectors, and Osram Opto and Design Dash Ltd. have developed image projection and IR technology for reconfigurable tactile displays.

For the past 18 months, MVIS management has been promising to deliver a projector that will ultimately fit inside a cell phone. Texas Instruments just beat Microvision to the market (by at least 6 months). While one can debate whether or not there will ever be a market for a mobile projector with less than 500 lumens (low-end business projectors produce 1,000 lumens), one cannot argue the quality differences between Texas Instruments/Optoma's product and that of Microvision's 'Show'.

Melbourne, Fla-based IDS designs integrated high-speed analog products for applications such as test and measurement, communications, and medical electronics. TI’s existing portfolio of high-speed signal chain products includes amplifiers, data converters, and clocking devices.