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Chipmaker Texas Instruments has announced it’s cutting 1,700 jobs as part of a business restructuring move. The company says it’s shifting its historical focus away from mobile chips because it’s become too resource and investment intensive to play in this space, blaming large customers “increasingly” developing their own custom chips. Apple and Samsung both develop their own mobile processors for products such as the iPhone and iPad, and the Galaxy SIII smartphone and Nexus 10 tablet.

Reuters reports that TI is expected to continue selling existing tablet and phone processors for products already using its chips, such as Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablets, for as long as demand remains but that it will stop developing new chips. Last month there were rumours Amazon was in advanced talks to buy TI’s mobile chip business – however today’s restructuring indicates any talks that took place failed to come to an agreement.

TI’s move away from mobile chips is not a surprise as the chipmaker has previously said it plans to focus its OMAP processors and wireless chips on a “broader set of embedded applications with long life cycles” and “greater potential for sustainable growth” — applications such as cars and home appliances, according to Reuters. TI also previously provided the following statement to TechCrunch flagging up areas where it believes its processors are “a perfect fit”

o   OMAP: automotive (rich visual displays for infotainment systems and rear-seat displays), industrial (fluid, responsive touchscreens for human-machine interfaces and home automation), enterprise communications (high-definition video experiences for video IP phones and video conferencing) and robotics (cutting-edge vision analytics technology for intelligent home and industrial robots).

o   Connectivity: in-building (connected smart meters, intelligent appliances that automatically place a service call, electronic shelf labels at retail where pricing can be updated instantly across all stores), portable (smart bandages that sense body temperature, blood glucose meter, health and fitness monitor), automotive (tire pressure sensors, wireless rear view cameras, wireless seat adjustment systems to eliminate cost and weight)

As a result of the job cuts, which Reuters notes is around five percent of TI’s global workforce, the company said it expects to make annualized savings of around $450 million by the end of 2013. It will take a hit of around $325 million in total charges — most of which will be accounted for in the current quarter, it said.

“We have a great opportunity to reshape our OMAP processor and wireless connectivity product lines to concentrate on embedded markets. Momentum is already building with new embedded applications and a broad set of customers, and we are accelerating our efforts in these areas,” said Greg Delagi, senior vice president of Embedded Processing, in a statement. “These job reductions are something we do with a heavy heart because they impact people we care deeply about. We will work closely with all employees affected by these changes to provide a range of assistance related to compensation, benefits and job search.”

According to recent Strategy Analytics report, TI was fourth in the smartphone market chipmaker rankings — trailing far behind market leader Qualcomm, which grabbed a whopping 48 percent revenue share in the first half of the year. Intel has also entered the mobile market recently, albeit taking only a fractional portion so far with only around half a dozen smartphones launching with its Atom x86 Medfield chips inside this year. Intel is lining up the next generation of its mobile chipset — which will include LTE support — and appears committed to its second crack at the smarphone market, so the arrival of additional competition into an already difficult market may also have contributed to TI’s decision to focus elsewhere.

TI’s release follows below

Welcome to Wednesday evening everyone. Today Samsung rejected rumors that it’s been charging Apple a 20% premium on processors for iDevices, saying that since the prices are determined and agreed upon at the beginning of the year, it would be pretty difficult to change them. Speaking of Apple, the company confirmed today that it will soon open its first store in South America – the store will be located in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to be exact.

We learned today that Call of Duty: Black Ops II sold 1 million copies at GameStop alone on launch day – news that shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone – and Rockstar delivered the second trailer for Grand Theft Auto V after weeks of new screenshots and news for the highly anticipated game. RIM CEO Thorsten Heins is confident that BlackBerry 10 will be a big hit when it arrives early next year, while the HTC Windows Phone 8X and Nokia Lumia 820 landed at T-Mobile today.

Steve Wozniak expressed his fear that Microsoft is doing more to innovate than Apple is, while we learned that text messaging is showing a decline for the first time ever. The HTC DLX – better known by the name of HTC DROID DNA here in the United States – will be launching in China on December 6, while AT&T launched its 4G LTE network in a number of new markets today. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 has been added to the Queen’s royal collection, and sadly, the final issue of Nintendo Power has been finished, which means that the magazine’s offices have gone dark.

We heard the very sad news that Texas Instruments plans to lay off 1,700 workers in an attempt to save some cash, while Google added one-click app installs to Google Plus feeds today. One father went to the trouble of changing the text in The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker to show his daughter that it isn’t always boys who get to be the hero, some EA Origin members are having issues with hijacked accounts, and the Facebook Pages feed is ready for some time in the spotlight.

Finally tonight, we have a couple of different reviews coming your way, both from Chris Burns. First up we’ve got a review of Roger Dean’s Dragons Dream for iOS, followed by a review of the HTC Windows Phone 8X from T-Mobile. That does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up, enjoy the rest of your night everyone!

SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: November 14, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If you’re one of the first on your block to have picked up a Nokia Lumia 920, you might wonder why it’s so forgiving with where you set it down on the wireless charging pad. TI is more than willing to share. The 920, 820, Fatboy charging pillow and JBL PowerUp speaker all use a new TI bq500410A controller whose support for new transmitters gives it a charging area four times larger than we’re used to. The 2.76 by 0.79 inches of coverage might not sound like much, but it’s much wider than the previous 0.71 square inches while preserving a 70 percent efficiency and a safety cutoff if something gets in between. As a companion, there’s a bq51050B chip launching at the same time that represents the first Qi receiver with its own built-in battery charger, which TI claims can charge more quickly and in less space than its rivals. Anyone embracing Nokia’s vision of Windows Phone 8 can get their hands on devices using the wireless power chips today; we’re only left hoping that TI’s official news means other phone makers can tag along.

Continue reading TI details the wireless power chip in the Lumia 920, offers four times the charging area

Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals, Nokia

TI details the wireless power chip in the Lumia 920, offers four times the charging area originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Nov 2012 15:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When it comes to cheap tablets, we’re sure that many of you guys think of the Kindle Fire by Amazon or the Nexus 7 by Google/ASUS. Granted they’re not as cheap as some other tablets we’ve seen, but they do offer up better build quality and features. That being said, it looks like Texas Instruments might be hoping to cash in on the cheap tablet craze by partnering up with AllGo Embedded Systems. Both companies have collaborated on a new reference design for a tablet that they have recently announced, a reference design that can apparently help build Android 4.0 tablets for under $70.

Dubbed the Etab, this reference design is an extremely basic tablet and will be using a pretty old processor, specifically that of TI’s Sitara AM335X chip with an 800MHz Cortex A8 processor, a processor that was introduced back in 2006. The tablet is expected to feature a 7” display, a plastic casing, along with both WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. Given the rather aged chipset, this reference design does not appear to be intended for regular consumers. Instead it was suggested that it could be used by hardware developers looking to create a custom tablet, or used as embedded hardware for enterprises or even in the education sector.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Amazon rumored to be interested in acquiring Texas Instruments’ mobile chip division, Texas Instruments not pulling out of smartphone/tablet market after all,

Welcome to Tuesday evening everyone. Today was a pretty big day as far as news goes, with Apple sending out invites to an upcoming event, which is where we’re assuming the company will announce the iPad Mini. Not one to be outdone, Microsoft finally gave us some substantial details on Surface today (including information on pre-orders), and Samsung was right there to put its line up of new Windows 8 PCs and tablets up for pre-order as well.

We heard that there could be as many as 24 different iPad Mini models when Apple finally gets around to revealing the device, and we got to see the insides of the new iPod Nano thanks a teardown from iFixit. Excited for the Padfone 2? If you are, you’ll be pleased to know that its tablet dock can stand up to some abuse. We found out that Intel’s Q3 profits were negatively influenced by slowing demand for PCs, and heard that the average screen size is on the rise for all types of devices except for “mobile PCs.”

A mysterious Texas Instruments-made chip was found lurking inside Apple’s Lightning cable today, and Verizon is catching some heat for monitoring user activity. PlayMG revealed a dedicated Android gaming device called the MG, and AVADirect put a number of Windows 8 PCs up for pre-order today. We heard that T-Mobile might be getting the iPhone 5 early next year, and were told that LTE customers in the US pay 10 times more than LTE customers in Sweden. If you’re a hardcore gamer, you might be pleased to find out that the rechargeable battery in the Wii U Pro controller could potentially last up to 80 hours on a single charge, and you also might want to check out this snazzy Black Ops II launch trailer.

Bethesda might be working on a new piece of Skyrim DLC called Dragonborn, and controversial company Foxconn admitted to hiring underage workers today. The Xbox 360 was given a new dashboard update, Beats Audio unveiled a new portable speaker that has been aptly named “The Pill,” and Boxee announced a new service called Boxee TV. Finally tonight, we have a review of the LG Optimus G and the Motorola DROID RAZR HD, both by Chris Burns, and Vincent Nguyen talks with Microsoft to get the inside scoop on what makes the Surface such a game-changer. That does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up, enjoy the rest of your night!

SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: October 16, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.