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110-599: Texas Instruments Incorporated ( TI ) is an American multinational semiconductor company headquartered in Dallas, Texas . It is one of the top 10 semiconductor companies worldwide based on sales volume. The company's focus is on developing analog chips and embedded processors , which account for more than 80% of its revenue. TI also produces digital light processing (DLP) technology and education technology products including calculators , microcontrollers , and multi-core processors . Texas Instruments emerged in 1951 after

220-713: A Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives , was the Texas Instruments president. Geophysical Service, Inc. became a subsidiary of Texas Instruments. Early in 1988, most of GSI was sold to the Halliburton Company. Texas Instruments exists to create, make, and market useful products and services to satisfy the needs of its customers throughout the world. In 1930, J. Clarence Karcher and Eugene McDermott founded Geophysical Service, an early provider of seismic exploration services to

330-439: A cut-off frequency of one cycle per second, too low for any practical applications, but an effective application of the available theory. At Bell Labs , William Shockley and A. Holden started investigating solid-state amplifiers in 1938. The first p–n junction in silicon was observed by Russell Ohl about 1941 when a specimen was found to be light-sensitive, with a sharp boundary between p-type impurity at one end and n-type at

440-428: A mass-production basis, which limited them to a number of specialised applications. Security clearance A security clearance is a status granted to individuals allowing them access to classified information (state or organizational secrets ) or to restricted areas , after completion of a thorough background check . The term "security clearance" is also sometimes used in private organizations that have

550-513: A common semi-insulator is gallium arsenide . Some materials, such as titanium dioxide , can even be used as insulating materials for some applications, while being treated as wide-gap semiconductors for other applications. The partial filling of the states at the bottom of the conduction band can be understood as adding electrons to that band. The electrons do not stay indefinitely (due to the natural thermal recombination ) but they can move around for some time. The actual concentration of electrons

660-423: A completely full valence band is inert, not conducting any current. If an electron is taken out of the valence band, then the trajectory that the electron would normally have taken is now missing its charge. For the purposes of electric current, this combination of the full valence band, minus the electron, can be converted into a picture of a completely empty band containing a positively charged particle that moves in

770-419: A formal process to vet employees for access to sensitive information. A clearance by itself is normally not sufficient to gain access; the organization must also determine that the cleared individual needs to know specific information. No individual is supposed to be granted automatic access to classified information solely because of rank, position, or a security clearance. National Security Clearances are

880-410: A guide to the construction of more capable and reliable devices. Alexander Graham Bell used the light-sensitive property of selenium to transmit sound over a beam of light in 1880. A working solar cell, of low efficiency, was constructed by Charles Fritts in 1883, using a metal plate coated with selenium and a thin layer of gold; the device became commercially useful in photographic light meters in

990-433: A hierarchy of levels, depending on the classification of materials that can be accessed—Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS), Counter-Terrorist Check (CTC), Enhanced Baseline Standard (EBS), Security Check (SC), enhanced Security Check (eSC), Developed Vetting (DV), enhanced Developed Vetting (eDV), and STRAP. The BPSS is the entry-level National Security Clearance, and both CTC and EBS are effectively enhancements to

1100-440: A leader in the graphing calculator industry. Its defense business was sold to Raytheon Company in 1997; this allowed TI to strengthen its focus on digital solutions. After the acquisition of National Semiconductor in 2011, the company had a combined portfolio of 45,000 analog products and customer design tools. In the stock market, Texas Instruments is often regarded as an indicator for the semiconductor and electronics industry as

1210-445: A low-pressure chamber to create plasma . A common etch gas is chlorofluorocarbon , or more commonly known Freon . A high radio-frequency voltage between the cathode and anode is what creates the plasma in the chamber. The silicon wafer is located on the cathode, which causes it to be hit by the positively charged ions that are released from the plasma. The result is silicon that is etched anisotropically . The last process

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1320-627: A need for clearances, including: A United States security clearance is an official determination that an individual may access information classified by the United States Government . Security clearances are hierarchical; each level grants the holder access to information in that level and the levels below it. The UN has a Security Clearance (SC) procedure and document for United Nations staff travelling to areas designated as security phase areas, with numbers ranging from one to five ("no-phase" areas are calm countries where no SC

1430-519: A pair is completed. Such carrier traps are sometimes purposely added to reduce the time needed to reach the steady-state. The conductivity of semiconductors may easily be modified by introducing impurities into their crystal lattice . The process of adding controlled impurities to a semiconductor is known as doping . The amount of impurity, or dopant, added to an intrinsic (pure) semiconductor varies its level of conductivity. Doped semiconductors are referred to as extrinsic . By adding impurity to

1540-527: A paper: "Some Recent Developments in Silicon and Germanium Materials and Devices". In 1954, Texas Instruments designed and manufactured the first transistor radio . The Regency TR-1 used germanium transistors, as silicon transistors were much more expensive at the time. This was an effort by Haggerty to increase market demand for transistors. Jack Kilby , an employee at TI, invented the integrated circuit in 1958. Kilby recorded his initial ideas concerning

1650-460: A prototype of the world's first transistor radio , and, through a partnership with Industrial Development Engineering Associates of Indianapolis, Indiana, the 100% solid-state radio was sold to the public beginning in October of that year. In the 1960s, company president Pat Haggerty had a team that included Jack Kilby to work on a handheld calculator project. Kilby and two other colleagues created

1760-436: A reorganization of Geophysical Service Incorporated , a company founded in 1930 that manufactured equipment for use in the seismic industry, as well as defense electronics. TI produced the world's first commercial silicon transistor in 1954, and the same year designed and manufactured the first transistor radio . Jack Kilby invented the integrated circuit in 1958 while working at TI's Central Research Labs. TI also invented

1870-431: A semiconducting material would cause it to leave thermal equilibrium and create a non-equilibrium situation. This introduces electrons and holes to the system, which interact via a process called ambipolar diffusion . Whenever thermal equilibrium is disturbed in a semiconducting material, the number of holes and electrons changes. Such disruptions can occur as a result of a temperature difference or photons , which can enter

1980-426: A semiconductor is doped by Group III elements, they will behave like acceptors creating free holes, known as " p-type " doping. The semiconductor materials used in electronic devices are doped under precise conditions to control the concentration and regions of p- and n-type dopants. A single semiconductor device crystal can have many p- and n-type regions; the p–n junctions between these regions are responsible for

2090-501: A silicon atom in the crystal, a vacant state (an electron "hole") is created, which can move around the lattice and function as a charge carrier. Group V elements have five valence electrons, which allows them to act as a donor; substitution of these atoms for silicon creates an extra free electron. Therefore, a silicon crystal doped with boron creates a p-type semiconductor whereas one doped with phosphorus results in an n-type material. During manufacture , dopants can be diffused into

2200-783: A theory of solid-state physics , which developed greatly in the first half of the 20th century. In 1878 Edwin Herbert Hall demonstrated the deflection of flowing charge carriers by an applied magnetic field, the Hall effect . The discovery of the electron by J.J. Thomson in 1897 prompted theories of electron-based conduction in solids. Karl Baedeker , by observing a Hall effect with the reverse sign to that in metals, theorized that copper iodide had positive charge carriers. Johan Koenigsberger  [ de ] classified solid materials like metals, insulators, and "variable conductors" in 1914 although his student Josef Weiss already introduced

2310-476: A vacuum, though with a different effective mass . Because the electrons behave like an ideal gas, one may also think about conduction in very simplistic terms such as the Drude model , and introduce concepts such as electron mobility . For partial filling at the top of the valence band, it is helpful to introduce the concept of an electron hole . Although the electrons in the valence band are always moving around,

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2420-567: A variety of proportions. These compounds share with better-known semiconductors the properties of intermediate conductivity and a rapid variation of conductivity with temperature, as well as occasional negative resistance . Such disordered materials lack the rigid crystalline structure of conventional semiconductors such as silicon. They are generally used in thin film structures, which do not require material of higher electronic quality, being relatively insensitive to impurities and radiation damage. Almost all of today's electronic technology involves

2530-399: A whole, since the company sells to more than 100,000 customers. Texas Instruments was founded by Cecil H. Green , J. Erik Jonsson , Eugene McDermott , and Patrick E. Haggerty in 1951. McDermott was one of the original founders of Geophysical Service Inc. (GSI) in 1930. McDermott, Green, and Jonsson were GSI employees who purchased the company in 1941. In November 1945, Patrick Haggerty

2640-415: Is a combination of processes that are used to prepare semiconducting materials for ICs. One process is called thermal oxidation , which forms silicon dioxide on the surface of the silicon . This is used as a gate insulator and field oxide . Other processes are called photomasks and photolithography . This process is what creates the patterns on the circuit in the integrated circuit. Ultraviolet light

2750-472: Is a function of the temperature, as the probability of getting enough thermal energy to produce a pair increases with temperature, being approximately exp(− E G / kT ) , where k is the Boltzmann constant , T is the absolute temperature and E G is bandgap. The probability of meeting is increased by carrier traps – impurities or dislocations which can trap an electron or hole and hold it until

2860-404: Is called diffusion . This is the process that gives the semiconducting material its desired semiconducting properties. It is also known as doping . The process introduces an impure atom to the system, which creates the p–n junction . To get the impure atoms embedded in the silicon wafer, the wafer is first put in a 1,100 degree Celsius chamber. The atoms are injected in and eventually diffuse with

2970-410: Is increased by adding a small amount (of the order of 1 in 10 ) of pentavalent ( antimony , phosphorus , or arsenic ) or trivalent ( boron , gallium , indium ) atoms. This process is known as doping, and the resulting semiconductors are known as doped or extrinsic semiconductors . Apart from doping, the conductivity of a semiconductor can be improved by increasing its temperature. This is contrary to

3080-780: Is inert, blocking the passage of other electrons via that state. The energies of these quantum states are critical since a state is partially filled only if its energy is near the Fermi level (see Fermi–Dirac statistics ). High conductivity in material comes from it having many partially filled states and much state delocalization. Metals are good electrical conductors and have many partially filled states with energies near their Fermi level. Insulators , by contrast, have few partially filled states, their Fermi levels sit within band gaps with few energy states to occupy. Importantly, an insulator can be made to conduct by increasing its temperature: heating provides energy to promote some electrons across

3190-512: Is intended more as a reminder to the person that they are under such obligations. To this end, it is common to sign this statement both before and after a period of employment that involves access to secrets. After the United States entered into World War II , Britain changed its security classifications to match those of the U.S.. Previously, classifications had included the top classification "Most Secret", but it soon became apparent that

3300-747: Is made up of four divisions: analog products , embedded processors , digital light processing , and educational technology . As of January 2021, the industrial market accounts for 41 percent of TI's annual revenue, and the automotive market accounts for 21 percent. TI's remaining businesses consisting of DLP products (primarily used in projectors to create high-definition images), calculators and certain custom semiconductors known as application-specific integrated circuits. Texas Instruments sells DLP technology for TVs, video projectors, and digital cinema . On February 2, 2000, Philippe Binant, technical manager of Digital Cinema Project at Gaumont in France, realized

3410-845: Is neither a very good insulator nor a very good conductor. However, one important feature of semiconductors (and some insulators, known as semi-insulators ) is that their conductivity can be increased and controlled by doping with impurities and gating with electric fields. Doping and gating move either the conduction or valence band much closer to the Fermi level and greatly increase the number of partially filled states. Some wider-bandgap semiconductor materials are sometimes referred to as semi-insulators . When undoped, these have electrical conductivity nearer to that of electrical insulators, however they can be doped (making them as useful as semiconductors). Semi-insulators find niche applications in micro-electronics, such as substrates for HEMT . An example of

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3520-504: Is typically very dilute, and so (unlike in metals) it is possible to think of the electrons in the conduction band of a semiconductor as a sort of classical ideal gas , where the electrons fly around freely without being subject to the Pauli exclusion principle . In most semiconductors, the conduction bands have a parabolic dispersion relation , and so these electrons respond to forces (electric field, magnetic field, etc.) much as they would in

3630-402: Is used along with a photoresist layer to create a chemical change that generates the patterns for the circuit. The etching is the next process that is required. The part of the silicon that was not covered by the photoresist layer from the previous step can now be etched. The main process typically used today is called plasma etching . Plasma etching usually involves an etch gas pumped in

3740-532: The Annalen der Physik und Chemie in 1835; Rosenschöld's findings were ignored. Simon Sze stated that Braun's research was the earliest systematic study of semiconductor devices. Also in 1874, Arthur Schuster found that a copper oxide layer on wires had rectification properties that ceased when the wires are cleaned. William Grylls Adams and Richard Evans Day observed the photovoltaic effect in selenium in 1876. A unified explanation of these phenomena required

3850-720: The Little Professor in 1976 and Dataman in 1977. TI produces a range of calculators, with the TI-30 being one of the most popular early calculators . TI has also developed a line of graphing calculators , the first being the TI-81 , and most popular being the TI-83 Plus (with the TI-84 Plus being an updated equivalent). Many TI calculators are still sold without graphing capabilities. The TI-30 has been replaced by

3960-534: The Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty . Texas Instruments also continued to manufacture equipment for use in the seismic industry, and GSI continued to provide seismic services. After selling (and repurchasing) GSI, TI finally sold the company to Halliburton in 1988, after which sale GSI ceased to exist as a separate entity. In early 1952, Texas Instruments purchased a patent license to produce germanium transistors from Western Electric ,

4070-429: The Pauli exclusion principle ). These states are associated with the electronic band structure of the material. Electrical conductivity arises due to the presence of electrons in states that are delocalized (extending through the material), however in order to transport electrons a state must be partially filled , containing an electron only part of the time. If the state is always occupied with an electron, then it

4180-845: The Paveway series of laser-guided bombs (LGBs). The first LGB was the BOLT-117 . In 1969, TI won the Harpoon (missile) Seeker contract. In 1986, TI won the Army FGM-148 Javelin fire-and-forget man portable antitank guided missile in a joint venture with Martin Marietta . In 1991, TI was awarded the contract for the AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon . In 1988, TI paid the U.S. government $ 5.2 million "to settle allegations one of its divisions overcharged

4290-454: The Siege of Leningrad after successful completion. In 1926, Julius Edgar Lilienfeld patented a device resembling a field-effect transistor , but it was not practical. R. Hilsch  [ de ] and R. W. Pohl  [ de ] in 1938 demonstrated a solid-state amplifier using a structure resembling the control grid of a vacuum tube; although the device displayed power gain, it had

4400-641: The Speak & Spell , such as the Speak & Read and Speak & Math , were introduced soon thereafter. In 1979, TI entered the home computer market with the TI-99/4 , a competitor to computers such as the Apple II , TRS-80 , and the later Atari 400/800 and VIC-20 . By late 1982, TI was dominating the U.S. home computer market, shipping 5,000 computers a day from their factory in Lubbock. It discontinued

4510-638: The TI-30X IIS . Also, some financial calculators are for sale on the TI website. In 2007, TI released the TI-Nspire family of calculators and computer software that has similar capabilities to the calculators. Semiconductor A semiconductor is a material that is between the conductor and insulator in ability to conduct electrical current. In many cases their conducting properties may be altered in useful ways by introducing impurities (" doping ") into

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4620-792: The TI-99/4A (1981), the sequel to the 99/4, in late 1983 amid an intense price war waged primarily against Commodore. At the 1983 Winter CES, TI showed models 99/2 and the Compact Computer 40 , the latter aimed at professional users. The TI Professional (1983) ultimately joined the ranks of the many unsuccessful MS-DOS and x86 -based—but non-compatible —competitors to the IBM PC (the founders of Compaq , an early leader in PC compatibles, all came from TI). The company for years successfully made and sold PC-compatible laptops before withdrawing from

4730-445: The band gap , be accompanied by the emission of thermal energy (in the form of phonons ) or radiation (in the form of photons ). In some states, the generation and recombination of electron–hole pairs are in equipoise. The number of electron-hole pairs in the steady state at a given temperature is determined by quantum statistical mechanics . The precise quantum mechanical mechanisms of generation and recombination are governed by

4840-470: The conservation of energy and conservation of momentum . As the probability that electrons and holes meet together is proportional to the product of their numbers, the product is in the steady-state nearly constant at a given temperature, providing that there is no significant electric field (which might "flush" carriers of both types, or move them from neighbor regions containing more of them to meet together) or externally driven pair generation. The product

4950-406: The crystal structure . When two differently doped regions exist in the same crystal, a semiconductor junction is created. The behavior of charge carriers , which include electrons , ions , and electron holes , at these junctions is the basis of diodes , transistors , and most modern electronics . Some examples of semiconductors are silicon , germanium , gallium arsenide , and elements near

5060-556: The $ 1.8 billion in total TI defense revenues, and was sold to TriQuint Semiconductor , Inc. Raytheon retained its own existing MMIC capabilities and has the right to license TI's MMIC technology for use in future product applications from TriQuint. Shortly after Raytheon acquired TI DSEG, Raytheon then acquired Hughes Aircraft from General Motors . Raytheon then owned TI's mercury cadmium telluride detector business and infrared (IR) systems group. In California, it also had Hughes infrared detector and an IR systems business. When again

5170-461: The 1930s. Point-contact microwave detector rectifiers made of lead sulfide were used by Jagadish Chandra Bose in 1904; the cat's-whisker detector using natural galena or other materials became a common device in the development of radio . However, it was somewhat unpredictable in operation and required manual adjustment for best performance. In 1906, H.J. Round observed light emission when electric current passed through silicon carbide crystals,

5280-431: The 1960s, popularized the use of integrated circuits in computer logic. The military-grade version of this was the 5400 series. Texas Instruments invented the hand-held calculator (a prototype called " Cal Tech ") in 1967 and the single-chip microcomputer in 1971, was assigned the first patent on a single-chip microprocessor (invented by Gary Boone) on September 4, 1973. This was disputed by Gilbert Hyatt, formerly of

5390-514: The BPSS, with CTC relating to checking for susceptibility to extremist persuasion, and EBS relating to checking for susceptibility to espionage persuasion, the latter being needed for supervised access to SECRET material. The SC again is focused on susceptibility to espionage persuasion, and is required for an individual to have long-term unsupervised access to SECRET material and occasional access to TOP SECRET (TS) material, whilst for regular access to TS

5500-503: The Cal-Tech, a three-pound battery-powered calculator that could do basic math and fit six-digit numbers on its display. This 4.25 x 6.15 x 1.75 inch calculator's processor would originate the vast majority of Texas Instruments’ revenue. In 1973, the handheld calculator SR-10 (named after slide rule ) and in 1974, the handheld scientific calculator SR-50 were issued by TI. Both had red LED-segments numeric displays. The optical design of

5610-674: The DV, eDV is required. Occasionally STRAP is required with DV. Those with National Security Clearance are commonly required to sign a statement to the effect that they agree to abide by the restrictions of the Official Secrets Act (OSA). This is popularly referred to as "signing the Official Secrets Act". Signing this has no effect on which actions are legal, as the act is a law, not a contract, and individuals are bound by it whether or not they have signed it. Signing it

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5720-513: The Defense Systems & Electronics Group (DSEG). During the early 1980s, TI instituted a quality program which included Juran training, as well as promoting statistical process control , Taguchi methods , and Design for Six Sigma . In the late 1980s, the company, along with Eastman Kodak and Allied Signal , began involvement with Motorola , institutionalizing Motorola's Six Sigma methodology. Motorola, which originally developed

5830-564: The Explorer included the gate assignment system for United Airlines, described as "an artificial intelligence program that captures the combined experience and knowledge of a half-dozen United operations experts." In software for the PC, they introduced "Personal Consultant", a rule-based expert system development tool and runtime engine, followed by "Personal Consultant Plus" written in the Lisp-like language from MIT known as Scheme , and

5940-645: The F-22 Radar and Computer development contract. As the defense industry consolidated, TI sold its defense business to the Raytheon Company in 1997 for $ 2.95 billion. The Department of Justice required that Raytheon divest the TI Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MMIC) operations after closing the transaction. The TI MMIC business accounted for less than $ 40 million in 1996 revenues, or roughly 2% of

6050-822: The Industrial Systems Division, which was sold in the early 1990s to Siemens. In 2006, Bain Capital LLC , a private equity firm, purchased the Sensors & Controls division for $ 3.0 billion in cash. The RFID portion of the division remained part of TI, transferring to the Application Specific Products business unit of the Semiconductor division, with the newly formed independent company based in Attleboro taking

6160-676: The Micro Computer Company, in August 1990, when he was awarded a patent superseding TI's. This was overturned on June 19, 1996, in favor of TI (note: Intel is usually given credit with Texas Instruments for the almost-simultaneous invention of the microprocessor). In 1978, Texas Instruments introduced the first single-chip linear predictive coding speech synthesizer . In 1976, TI began a feasibility study of memory-intensive applications for bubble memory then being developed. They soon focused on speech applications. This resulted in

6270-503: The SR-50 is somewhat similar to the HP-35 edited by Hewlett-Packard before in early 1972, but buttons for the operations "+", "–", ... are in the right of the number block and the decimal point lies between two neighboring digits. TI continued to be active in the consumer electronics market through the 1970s and 1980s. Early on, this also included two digital clock models – one for desk and

6380-739: The Six Sigma methodology, began this work in 1982. In 1992, the DSEG division of Texas Instruments' quality-improvement efforts were rewarded by winning the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for manufacturing. TI developed the AAA-4 infrared search and track device in the late 1950s and early 1960s for the F-4B Phantom for passive scanning of jet-engine emissions, but it possessed limited capabilities and

6490-582: The US government forced Raytheon to divest itself of a duplicate capability, the company kept the TI IR systems business and the Hughes detector business. As a result of these acquisitions, these former arch rivals of TI systems and Hughes detectors work together. Immediately after acquisition, DSEG was known as Raytheon TI Systems (RTIS). It is now fully integrated into Raytheon and this designation no longer exists. TI

6600-597: The United States did not fully understand the UK's classifications, and classified information appeared in the U.S.'s press. This spearheaded the uniformity in classification between the United Kingdom and the United States. The terminology and levels of British security classifications have also changed from Positive Vetting and Enhanced Positive Vetting to SC, eSC, DV, eDV and STRAP. In addition to National Security Clearances, other types of roles and organisations stipulate

6710-416: The band gap, inducing partially filled states in both the band of states beneath the band gap ( valence band ) and the band of states above the band gap ( conduction band ). An (intrinsic) semiconductor has a band gap that is smaller than that of an insulator and at room temperature, significant numbers of electrons can be excited to cross the band gap. A pure semiconductor, however, is not very useful, as it

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6820-467: The behavior of a metal, in which conductivity decreases with an increase in temperature. The modern understanding of the properties of a semiconductor relies on quantum physics to explain the movement of charge carriers in a crystal lattice . Doping greatly increases the number of charge carriers within the crystal. When a semiconductor is doped by Group V elements, they will behave like donors creating free electrons , known as " n-type " doping. When

6930-554: The company changed its name to Texas Instruments, spun off to build seismographs for oil explorations and with GSI becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of the new company. An early success came for TI-GSI in 1965, when GSI was able (under a Top Secret government contract) to monitor the Soviet Union 's underground nuclear weapons testing under the ocean in Vela Uniform , a subset of Project Vela , to verify compliance of

7040-489: The concept of band gaps had been developed. Walter H. Schottky and Nevill Francis Mott developed models of the potential barrier and of the characteristics of a metal–semiconductor junction . By 1938, Boris Davydov had developed a theory of the copper-oxide rectifier, identifying the effect of the p–n junction and the importance of minority carriers and surface states. Agreement between theoretical predictions (based on developing quantum mechanics) and experimental results

7150-855: The construction of light-emitting diodes and fluorescent quantum dots . Semiconductors with high thermal conductivity can be used for heat dissipation and improving thermal management of electronics. They play a crucial role in electric vehicles , high-brightness LEDs and power modules , among other applications. Semiconductors have large thermoelectric power factors making them useful in thermoelectric generators , as well as high thermoelectric figures of merit making them useful in thermoelectric coolers . A large number of elements and compounds have semiconducting properties, including: The most common semiconducting materials are crystalline solids, but amorphous and liquid semiconductors are also known. These include hydrogenated amorphous silicon and mixtures of arsenic , selenium , and tellurium in

7260-684: The development the TMC0280 one-chip linear predictive coding speech synthesizer, which was the first time a single silicon chip had electronically replicated the human voice. This was used in several TI commercial products beginning with Speak & Spell , which was introduced at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show in June 1978. In 2001, TI left the speech synthesis business, selling it to Sensory Inc. of Santa Clara, California. In May 1954, Texas Instruments designed and built

7370-453: The electrical properties of materials. The properties of the time-temperature coefficient of resistance, rectification, and light-sensitivity were observed starting in the early 19th century. Thomas Johann Seebeck was the first to notice that semiconductors exhibit special feature such that experiment concerning an Seebeck effect emerged with much stronger result when applying semiconductors, in 1821. In 1833, Michael Faraday reported that

7480-530: The electrons in the conduction band). When ionizing radiation strikes a semiconductor, it may excite an electron out of its energy level and consequently leave a hole. This process is known as electron-hole pair generation . Electron-hole pairs are constantly generated from thermal energy as well, in the absence of any external energy source. Electron-hole pairs are also apt to recombine. Conservation of energy demands that these recombination events, in which an electron loses an amount of energy larger than

7590-474: The excess or shortage of electrons, respectively. A balanced number of electrons would cause a current to flow throughout the material. Homojunctions occur when two differently doped semiconducting materials are joined. For example, a configuration could consist of p-doped and n-doped germanium . This results in an exchange of electrons and holes between the differently doped semiconducting materials. The n-doped germanium would have an excess of electrons, and

7700-514: The fast response of crystal detectors. Considerable research and development of silicon materials occurred during the war to develop detectors of consistent quality. Detector and power rectifiers could not amplify a signal. Many efforts were made to develop a solid-state amplifier and were successful in developing a device called the point contact transistor which could amplify 20 dB or more. In 1922, Oleg Losev developed two-terminal, negative resistance amplifiers for radio, but he died in

7810-402: The first terrain-following radar and surveillance radar systems for both the military and FAA. TI demonstrated the first solid-state radar called Molecular Electronics for Radar Applications. In 1976, TI developed a microwave landing system prototype. In 1984, TI developed the first inverse synthetic aperture radar . The first single-chip gallium arsenide radar module was developed. In 1991,

7920-531: The first digital cinema projection in Europe with the DLP Cinema technology developed by TI DLP technology enables a diverse range of display and advanced light control applications spanning industrial, enterprise, automotive, and consumer market segments. The ASICs business develops more complex integrated-circuit solutions for clients on a custom basis. TI has produced educational toys for children, including

8030-471: The fiscal year 2017, Texas Instruments reported earnings of $ 3.682 billion, with an annual revenue of $ 14.961 billion, an increase of 11.9% over the previous fiscal cycle. TI shares traded at over $ 82 per share, and its market capitalization was valued at over $ 88.0 billion in October 2018. As of 2018, TI ranked 192nd on the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by revenue. As of 2016, TI

8140-557: The government on contracts for guided missiles sold to the Navy ". Because of TI's research and development of military temperature-range silicon transistors and integrated circuits (ICs), TI won contracts for the first IC-based computer for the U.S. Air Force in 1961 (molecular electronic computer) and for ICs for the Minuteman Missile the following year. In 1968, TI developed the data systems for Mariner Program . In 1991 TI won

8250-452: The hand-held calculator in 1967, and introduced the first single-chip microcontroller in 1970, which combined all the elements of computing onto one piece of silicon. In 1987, TI invented the digital light processing device (also known as the DLP chip), which serves as the foundation for the company's DLP technology and DLP Cinema. TI released the popular TI-81 calculator in 1990, which made it

8360-557: The integrated circuit in July 1958, and successfully demonstrated the world's first working integrated circuit on September 12, 1958. Six months later, Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor (who went on to co-found Intel ) independently developed the integrated circuit with integrated interconnect, and is also considered an inventor of the integrated circuit. In 1969, Kilby was awarded the National Medal of Science, and in 1982 he

8470-495: The invention of the transistor in 1947 and the integrated circuit in 1958. Semiconductors in their natural state are poor conductors because a current requires the flow of electrons, and semiconductors have their valence bands filled, preventing the entire flow of new electrons. Several developed techniques allow semiconducting materials to behave like conducting materials, such as doping or gating . These modifications have two outcomes: n-type and p-type . These refer to

8580-440: The manufacturing arm of AT&T, for US$ 25,000, beginning production by the end of the year. Haggerty brought Gordon Teal to the company due to his expertise in growing semiconductor crystals while at Bell Telephone Laboratories . Teal's first assignment was to direct TI's research laboratory. At the end of 1952, Texas Instruments announced that it had expanded to 2,000 employees and $ 17 million in sales. Among his new hires

8690-598: The market and selling its product line to Acer in 1998. TI entered the defense electronics market in 1942 with submarine detection equipment, based on the seismic exploration technology previously developed for the oil industry. The division responsible for these products was known at different times as the Laboratory & Manufacturing Division, the Apparatus Division, the Equipment Group, and

8800-543: The material's majority carrier . The opposite carrier is called the minority carrier , which exists due to thermal excitation at a much lower concentration compared to the majority carrier. For example, the pure semiconductor silicon has four valence electrons that bond each silicon atom to its neighbors. In silicon, the most common dopants are group III and group V elements. Group III elements all contain three valence electrons, causing them to function as acceptors when used to dope silicon. When an acceptor atom replaces

8910-470: The military microwave integrated circuit program was initiated—a joint effort with Raytheon. In 1961, TI won the guidance and control system contract for the defense suppression AGM-45 Shrike antiradiation missile . This led later to the prime on the high-speed antiradiation missile (AGM-88 HARM) development contract in 1974 and production in 1981. In 1964, TI began development of the first laser guidance system for precision-guided munitions , leading to

9020-579: The name Sensata Technologies. In 1997, TI sold its software division, along with its main products such as the CA Gen , to Sterling Software , which is now part of Computer Associates . However, TI still owns small pieces of software, such as the software for calculators such as the TI Interactive! . TI also creates a significant amount of target software for its digital signal processors, along with host-based tools for creating DSP applications. For

9130-484: The natural language menu system NLMenu. TI was a major original-equipment manufacturer of sensor , control, protection, and RFID products for the automotive, appliance, aircraft, and other industries. The Sensors & Controls division was headquartered in Attleboro, Massachusetts . By the mid-1980s, industrial computers known as PLC's (programmable logic controllers) were separated from Sensors & Controls as

9240-556: The other a bedside alarm. From this sprang what became the Time Products Division, which made LED watches. Though these LED watches enjoyed early commercial success due to excellent quality, it was short-lived due to poor battery life. LEDs were replaced with LCD watches for a short time, but these could not compete because of styling issues, excessive makes and models, and price points. The watches were manufactured in Dallas and then Lubbock, Texas . Several spin-offs of

9350-588: The other, showing variable resistance, and having sensitivity to light or heat. Because the electrical properties of a semiconductor material can be modified by doping and by the application of electrical fields or light, devices made from semiconductors can be used for amplification, switching, and energy conversion . The term semiconductor is also used to describe materials used in high capacity, medium- to high-voltage cables as part of their insulation, and these materials are often plastic XLPE ( Cross-linked polyethylene ) with carbon black. The conductivity of silicon

9460-449: The other. A slice cut from the specimen at the p–n boundary developed a voltage when exposed to light. The first working transistor was a point-contact transistor invented by John Bardeen , Walter Houser Brattain , and William Shockley at Bell Labs in 1947. Shockley had earlier theorized a field-effect amplifier made from germanium and silicon, but he failed to build such a working device, before eventually using germanium to invent

9570-417: The p-doped germanium would have an excess of holes. The transfer occurs until an equilibrium is reached by a process called recombination , which causes the migrating electrons from the n-type to come in contact with the migrating holes from the p-type. The result of this process is a narrow strip of immobile ions , which causes an electric field across the junction. A difference in electric potential on

9680-421: The petroleum industry. In 1939, the company reorganized as Coronado Corp, an oil company with Geophysical Service Inc (GSI), now as a subsidiary. On December 6, 1941, McDermott along with three other GSI employees, J. Erik Jonsson, Cecil H. Green, and H. B. Peacock purchased GSI. During World War II, GSI expanded its services to include electronics for the U.S. Army , Army Signal Corps , and U.S. Navy . In 1951,

9790-508: The point-contact transistor. In France, during the war, Herbert Mataré had observed amplification between adjacent point contacts on a germanium base. After the war, Mataré's group announced their " Transistron " amplifier only shortly after Bell Labs announced the " transistor ". In 1954, physical chemist Morris Tanenbaum fabricated the first silicon junction transistor at Bell Labs . However, early junction transistors were relatively bulky devices that were difficult to manufacture on

9900-524: The principle behind the light-emitting diode . Oleg Losev observed similar light emission in 1922, but at the time the effect had no practical use. Power rectifiers, using copper oxide and selenium, were developed in the 1920s and became commercially important as an alternative to vacuum tube rectifiers. The first semiconductor devices used galena , including German physicist Ferdinand Braun's crystal detector in 1874 and Indian physicist Jagadish Chandra Bose's radio crystal detector in 1901. In

10010-574: The pure semiconductors, the electrical conductivity may be varied by factors of thousands or millions. A 1 cm specimen of a metal or semiconductor has the order of 10 atoms. In a metal, every atom donates at least one free electron for conduction, thus 1 cm of metal contains on the order of 10 free electrons, whereas a 1 cm sample of pure germanium at 20   °C contains about 4.2 × 10 atoms, but only 2.5 × 10 free electrons and 2.5 × 10 holes. The addition of 0.001% of arsenic (an impurity) donates an extra 10 free electrons in

10120-629: The resistance of specimens of silver sulfide decreases when they are heated. This is contrary to the behavior of metallic substances such as copper. In 1839, Alexandre Edmond Becquerel reported observation of a voltage between a solid and a liquid electrolyte, when struck by light, the photovoltaic effect . In 1873, Willoughby Smith observed that selenium resistors exhibit decreasing resistance when light falls on them. In 1874, Karl Ferdinand Braun observed conduction and rectification in metallic sulfides , although this effect had been discovered earlier by Peter Munck af Rosenschöld ( sv ) writing for

10230-534: The same volume and the electrical conductivity is increased by a factor of 10,000. The materials chosen as suitable dopants depend on the atomic properties of both the dopant and the material to be doped. In general, dopants that produce the desired controlled changes are classified as either electron acceptors or donors . Semiconductors doped with donor impurities are called n-type , while those doped with acceptor impurities are known as p-type . The n and p type designations indicate which charge carrier acts as

10340-472: The same way as the electron. Combined with the negative effective mass of the electrons at the top of the valence band, we arrive at a picture of a positively charged particle that responds to electric and magnetic fields just as a normal positively charged particle would do in a vacuum, again with some positive effective mass. This particle is called a hole, and the collection of holes in the valence band can again be understood in simple classical terms (as with

10450-591: The scale at which the materials are used. A high degree of crystalline perfection is also required, since faults in the crystal structure (such as dislocations , twins , and stacking faults ) interfere with the semiconducting properties of the material. Crystalline faults are a major cause of defective semiconductor devices. The larger the crystal, the more difficult it is to achieve the necessary perfection. Current mass production processes use crystal ingots between 100 and 300 mm (3.9 and 11.8 in) in diameter, grown as cylinders and sliced into wafers . There

10560-425: The semiconductor body by contact with gaseous compounds of the desired element, or ion implantation can be used to accurately position the doped regions. Some materials, when rapidly cooled to a glassy amorphous state, have semiconducting properties. These include B, Si , Ge, Se, and Te, and there are multiple theories to explain them. The history of the understanding of semiconductors begins with experiments on

10670-458: The silicon. After the process is completed and the silicon has reached room temperature, the doping process is done and the semiconducting wafer is almost prepared. Semiconductors are defined by their unique electric conductive behavior, somewhere between that of a conductor and an insulator. The differences between these materials can be understood in terms of the quantum states for electrons, each of which may contain zero or one electron (by

10780-445: The so-called " metalloid staircase " on the periodic table . After silicon, gallium arsenide is the second-most common semiconductor and is used in laser diodes , solar cells , microwave-frequency integrated circuits , and others. Silicon is a critical element for fabricating most electronic circuits . Semiconductor devices can display a range of different useful properties, such as passing current more easily in one direction than

10890-427: The system and create electrons and holes. The processes that create or annihilate electrons and holes are called generation and recombination, respectively. In certain semiconductors, excited electrons can relax by emitting light instead of producing heat. Controlling the semiconductor composition and electrical current allows for the manipulation of the emitted light's properties. These semiconductors are used in

11000-407: The term Halbleiter (a semiconductor in modern meaning) in his Ph.D. thesis in 1910. Felix Bloch published a theory of the movement of electrons through atomic lattices in 1928. In 1930, B. Gudden  [ de ] stated that conductivity in semiconductors was due to minor concentrations of impurities. By 1931, the band theory of conduction had been established by Alan Herries Wilson and

11110-406: The use of semiconductors, with the most important aspect being the integrated circuit (IC), which are found in desktops , laptops , scanners, cell-phones , and other electronic devices. Semiconductors for ICs are mass-produced. To create an ideal semiconducting material, chemical purity is paramount. Any small imperfection can have a drastic effect on how the semiconducting material behaves due to

11220-498: The useful electronic behavior. Using a hot-point probe , one can determine quickly whether a semiconductor sample is p- or n-type. A few of the properties of semiconductor materials were observed throughout the mid-19th and first decades of the 20th century. The first practical application of semiconductors in electronics was the 1904 development of the cat's-whisker detector , a primitive semiconductor diode used in early radio receivers. Developments in quantum physics led in turn to

11330-467: The years preceding World War II, infrared detection and communications devices prompted research into lead-sulfide and lead-selenide materials. These devices were used for detecting ships and aircraft, for infrared rangefinders, and for voice communication systems. The point-contact crystal detector became vital for microwave radio systems since available vacuum tube devices could not serve as detectors above about 4000 MHz; advanced radar systems relied on

11440-415: Was Willis Adcock , who joined TI early in 1953. Adcock, who like Teal was a physical chemist , began leading a small research group focused on the task of fabricating grown-junction, silicon , single-crystal, small-signal transistors. Adcock later became the first TI Principal Fellow. In January 1954, Morris Tanenbaum at Bell Telephone Laboratories created the first workable silicon transistor. This work

11550-706: Was active in the area of artificial intelligence in the 1980s. In addition to ongoing developments in speech and signal processing and recognition, it developed and sold the Explorer computer family of Lisp machines . For the Explorer, a special 32-bit Lisp microprocessor was developed, which was used in the Explorer II and the TI MicroExplorer (a Lisp Machine on a NuBus board for the Apple Macintosh ). AI application software developed by TI for

11660-456: Was eliminated on F-4Ds and later models. In 1956, TI began research on infrared technology that led to several line scanner contracts and with the addition of a second scan mirror the invention of the first forward looking infrared (FLIR) in 1963 with production beginning in 1966. In 1972, TI invented the common module FLIR concept, greatly reducing cost and allowing reuse of common components. TI went on to produce side-looking radar systems,

11770-528: Was hired as general manager of the Laboratory and Manufacturing (L&M) division, which focused on electronic equipment. By 1951, the L&;M division, with its defense contracts, was growing faster than GSI's geophysical division. The company was reorganized and initially renamed General Instruments Inc. Because a firm named General Instrument already existed, the company was renamed Texas Instruments that same year. From 1956 to 1961, Fred Agnich of Dallas, later

11880-556: Was inducted into the National Inventor's Hall of Fame. Kilby also won the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics for his part of the invention of the integrated circuit. Noyce's chip, made at Fairchild, was made of silicon, while Kilby's chip was made of germanium . In 2008, TI named its new development laboratory "Kilby Labs" after Jack Kilby. The 7400 series of transistor-transistor logic chips, developed by Texas Instruments in

11990-687: Was reported in the spring of 1954, at the IRE off-the-record conference on solid-state devices, and was later published in the Journal of Applied Physics . Working independently in April 1954, Gordon Teal at TI created the first commercial silicon transistor and tested it on April 14, 1954. On May 10, 1954, at the Institute of Radio Engineers National Conference on Airborne Electronics in Dayton, Ohio, Teal presented

12100-637: Was sometimes poor. This was later explained by John Bardeen as due to the extreme "structure sensitive" behavior of semiconductors, whose properties change dramatically based on tiny amounts of impurities. Commercially pure materials of the 1920s containing varying proportions of trace contaminants produced differing experimental results. This spurred the development of improved material refining techniques, culminating in modern semiconductor refineries producing materials with parts-per-trillion purity. Devices using semiconductors were at first constructed based on empirical knowledge before semiconductor theory provided

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