TI chief calls for open standards for mobile ‘Net

This year can mark “an inflection point” in the use of mobile phones for Internet access, but the industry has to work together to make the mobile Internet work, Tom Engibous chairman, president and CEO of Texas Instruments Inc. said Friday.

This year can mark “an inflection point” in the use of mobile phones for Internet access, but the industry has to work together to make the mobile Internet work, Tom Engibous chairman, president and CEO of Texas Instruments said Friday.

“Very soon, multimedia cell phones will be the predominant method for Internet access worldwide,” Engibous said in a keynote presentation on the second day of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. He repeated a prediction many mobile phone industry executives have expressed. However, Engibous added a word of caution to the industry.

“Of course, to achieve the full potential will require continued collaboration across industries — from hardware and software, to distributors and retailers. We’re all in this together,” said Engibous. “Closed systems must open up, or fade away. In other words, the mobile Internet calls for open standards and open platforms.”

Texas Instruments Inc. is a large supplier of DSP (Digital Signal Processor) chips used in mobile phones, PDAs, broadband networking devices and other electronics products. In mobile phones, for example, DSPs compress, refine and transmit digital data that is the transformed analog voice.

With the digital age advancing, more and more products will hold TI chips, Engibous told the audience.

“Consumer electronics has been a relatively small part of our business in the past, but it is going to be much bigger than that in the future,” said Engibous. “Two years ago signal processing played no role in PDAs as the devices had no connectivity and little in the way of multimedia. This is a huge transformation we are in the midst of.”

The challenge for the future is to make components even smaller and more power efficient, said Engibous. Low power usage is essential for the ever smaller mobile devices. Engibous predicted that one day a mobile device user might be able to recharge the battery using body heat. “If you are alive, you’re connected,” he said.

Jim McLochlin, a mobile phone specialist attending CES from Alpharetta, Ga., enjoyed Engibous’ talk, especially because TI operates outside the limelight.

“It is interesting to hear from the manufacturers’ side — TI has always been a behind-the-scenes leader,” he said.