Texas Instruments Developing Low-power, 'Green' Products

June 26, 2007
One way to develop a ‘green’ technology product is to focus on reducing demand for power. This aspect of ‘greenness’ apparently has been forefront in the minds of developers at Texas Instruments, which announced Tuesday an initiative to create Ultra Low Power (ULP, formerly known as Wibree) Bluetooth-compatible products.
 
The company is leveraging its expertise with ZigBee, lower-power RF and mobile connectivity technologies to create power un-hungry products.
 
This initiative comes in the heels of the recent merger of Wibree Forum and Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), which created ULP as an open technology for wireless connectively between mobile devices and human interface devices (HIDs) such as wireless keyboards, watches, toys and sports sensors.
 
To develop new, low-power products, TI will be using its own radio technology (for the 2.4 GHz frequency), which meets ULP Bluetooth specifications. The goal? Drive the mass market adoption of wireless connectivity.
 
“TI fully supports the new ULP Bluetooth open technology and recognizes the need for a radio standard that will complement Bluetooth and ZigBee wireless technlogy for short- to medium-range wireless connectivity,” the company’s manager of strategic marketing for low-power wireless, Karl Helmer Torvmark, said in a statement.
 
Torvmark continued: “TI is committed to providing the market’s most competitive and comprehensive solutions for ULP Bluetooth wireless technology, which will enable customers to deliver complete, low-cost, low-power systems with shorter time-to-market.”
 
The company is developing low-power devices for two types of ULP Bluetooth implementations: single-node (watches, sensors and other very small devices) and dual-mode (communication with traditional Bluetooth-enabled products like mobile handsets).
 
TI said in its announcement that ZigBee and ULP Bluebooth are complementary technology; ZigBee is used for low-power, infrastructure-oriented mesh networking with thousands of nodes, and ULP Bluetooth is useful for linking smaller groups of nodes to devices like mobile phones and computers.
 
When it comes to being ‘green,’ it appears TI has the technology and expertise to help, in its own small way, to save the planet.


See this page in TechnoratiTechnoratibook mark in del.icio.usDel.icio.usSlashdot.comSlashdotSubmit to Digg.comDiggBookmark in FurlFurlBookmark in SpurlSpurl

Related Tags: , , , , ,

Listed below are links to sites that reference Texas Instruments Developing Low-power, 'Green' Products:

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL:
http://blog.tmcnet.com/mt3/t.fcgi/32854

Comments to Texas Instruments Developing Low-power, 'Green' Products


(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)