Texas Instruments is continuing the expansion of its cell phone chips into untraditional consumer and industrial devices.
The company in February announced 4 chips for its OMAP-3 architecture although only the low-end 3503 shipped at that time. Now the others are available – the 3515 with 3-D mapping and an update user interface, 3525 with picture-in-picture support and 3530 with all 3 of those features.
Expanding even more from the chips’ wireless roots, Texas Instruments said it’s supporting this technology in the new open-source electronics design kit, called the Beagle Board, sold via Digi-Key. A software developer kit for using the OMAP chips with digital video applications is also now available.
The OMAP3503, OMAP3515, OMAP3525 and OMAP3530 processors are priced in units of 100 at $25.95, $29.23, $43.49 and $48.34. The video kit is $1,495.
More chips in the series will probably arrive later this year or early next year, product marketing manager Kevin Hawkins said. Those will target more for automation and industrial applications that also require cellular connections.
Such a product line could continue for 7 to10 years – after all, he noted, Texas Instruments still ships some digital signal processors that it designed in the 1980s.