How General-Purpose Components Can Speed Embedded-System Design

ED: If you talk about the basics, what would you consider the basics?

Verdejo: In my role and across my entire career at TI, I have the opportunity to travel, visit hundreds of customers — thousands, possibly — around the world. 

And when I go out there, one of the biggest challenges that I constantly hear system designers talk about is finding the right part for every function on their system. They are balancing performance, cost, the design time they spend on it, and the availability of the product. Is this product going to be available in the long term? Is the supply chain reliable?

So, they need to know not only that the part works for their design today, but that they can confidently build around it in the future. 

ED: How would you contrast your offerings from what is available from your competition?

Verdejo: Number one is the breadth of our portfolio. Look at TI’s general-purpose portfolio across analog and embedded — we have thousands of products, maybe more than 100 categories, that we’re able to offer. That provides the customer with flexibility to pick between performance and cost.

Number two is the ease of design. We have application support; we have application notes that teach the customer how to use our part in their specific system. We have easy-to-use tools. We create products that are pin-to-pin to commodity products. So, if they’re using a competitor product, they’re able to use ours and then have a second source, and then increase their manufacturing flow and get their products to market faster.

And then the third area that we like to emphasize is our quality. Each of our products has a product cycle for development, and then the qualification portion is the one that takes the most time.

We want to make sure you have our part in your board. You don’t have to worry about having to change this part in 10 years. This is a commitment that we have with our customers, and we take it very seriously. 

ED: You could have the greatest microcontroller on the planet, but if your wireless connectivity has bandwidth issues or issues of any nature, it’s not going to work the way it’s designed, right?

Verdejo: That’s correct. And then think of when you talk to customers; usually, when they have a design from one generation to the next, they reuse the circuits. For voltage sensing, they use the same circuit, and they tend to reuse the same part.

If you give a part that is not reliable or not available in the market, or you’re not able to supply it whenever they have the demand, how do they move faster? How are they able to innovate faster?

So, I think that what we’re providing at Texas Instruments is that availability, that quality, and that peace of mind for the customer. Ultimately, a strong general-purpose portfolio helps accelerate innovation. I tell this to my employees and my customers because without those building blocks, you really cannot move fast. Basically, your development slows down. 

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