TI fleshes out chips for wireless

NEWS Texas Instruments showed off several new chipsets yesterday that it says will help handheld devices run graphics, multimedia content and Java applications as much as eight times faster than they can now. The new chipsets incorporate the company's Open Multimedia Applications Protocol (OMAP), used by next-generation mobile phones and other wireless devices to access the internet. According to TI, the chipsets include security technology and let mobile device makers increase battery life while maintaining security. The new chipsets are compatible with earlier processors from TI. Samples of the OMAP 1610, 1611 and 730 chipsets are expected to be available in the first quarter. Samples of the OMAP 1612 and 732 chipsets, which use stacked memory, are expected to be available in the second quarter. All five chipsets should be in production by the fourth quarter. The chipsets work with multiple operating systems, including Linux, Palm, Symbian and Microsoft's Pocket PC and Smartphone. The 730 and 732 chipsets include a modem designed to work with General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and GSM protocols. Also on Monday, Texas Instruments announced a new radio chipset designed for 3G Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), also known as wideband-CDMA. The TCS 4105 UMTS chipset and reference design will work with the OMAP processors, to support multimedia applications such as video and 3D. Full-scale production is expected to start in the first half of 2004.