Texas Instruments said Tuesday the company would invest more
on the OMAP applications processor to focus more on the embedded
market and less on smartphones and tablets.
OMAP is currently powering smartphones and tablets including
Motorola Droid handsets and Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet. However, TI
faces stiff competition from Qualcomm and Nvidia. In addition,
market leaders Apple and Samsung use their own processors for their
popular devices.
"If you look at the dynamics in that market, you look at it being
dominated by a couple of players, you look at the fact that vertical
integration has become a very significant factor in the marketplace,
the truth is that it's just a less attractive opportunity for us,"
said Greg Delagi, TI's senior vice president for embedded
processing, in a presentation to financial analysts Tuesday.
Delagi added that TI plans to re-profile its R&D investment to
focus on the embedded market, where he said the company could bring
OMAP and its connectivity technologies to a much broader set of
customers.
Delagi explained that TI would continue to support existing
smartphone and tablet customers that use OMAP.