Texas Instrument’s OMAP4 mobile chipset is quite good. In fact, you’ll be seeing it in the Kindle Fire HD. But despite the technical proficiency of that piece of silicon, the company has bigger plans for its technology than just tablets and smartphones: it wants to be in cars.
According to Reuters, the company is not just broadening the scope of its product offerings, but actually shifting its focus to markets outside mobile devices.
TI, whose chips are used in products such as Amazon.com’s Kindle Fire tablet, told investors that it would continue to support its customers. But its mobile application chip business, which supports features like video, will not invest in supporting its customers future roadmap for tablets and smartphones to the same degree as before.
“We believe that opportunity is less attractive as we go forward,” Greg Delagi, senior vice president for embedded processing, said during a webcast of the meeting.
And this makes sense really. Even if the company has a good product, it is still competing against the likes of NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Apple, and Intel in the mobile space. And when you’re aligned with a mobile OS that supports multiple chipsets, there’s only so much money to go around. Focusing elsewhere could allow the company to find a comfortable niche for itself. But for now, expect to see the OMAP 4 in plenty of devices. [Reuters]