TI acquires National Semiconductor

[PalmerTech]

Dear Palmer Luckey,

I am excited to let you know that TI has signed a definitive agreement to purchase National Semiconductor, uniting two industry leaders that have a common commitment to solving your analog needs. I want to reinforce TI's commitment to you, our customer, as we merge our two companies.

This acquisition will allow us to address your analog needs with a product portfolio of unmatched breadth and depth. National's 12,000 products plus TI's 30,000 means more performance, power and packaging options when selecting the right ICs for your application. And we'll provide a common set of best-in-class online tools to make the selection and design process easier.

Our combined sales and applications team of 2,500 will be larger than any in the industry so we can provide more customers with greater face-to-face support than ever before.

Our manufacturing operations will offer more capacity to support your growth. TI's fabs and National's available capacity can enable higher production levels.

While both companies will operate independently pending the close, our goal thereafter is to make the integration process as seamless as possible. No requalification of products will be necessary since National's manufacturing sites will continue to be utilized. Part numbers from both companies will remain the same. There will be no obsolescence of products.

I'm excited about what the integration of our two companies will mean for you: an unmatched portfolio to meet your analog needs, an extensive sales and applications network to ease the design process, and manufacturing capacity to support your growth.

You can learn more about the acquisition at www.ti.com/acquire, including answers to frequently asked questions and video messages from TI leaders regarding the acquisition.

Thank you for choosing TI. I look forward to a great future together.

Best regards,

Rich Templeton
Chairman, President and CEO
Texas Instruments

Just got this heads up in my inbox today. What do you guys think? TI has some amazing R&D projectors that will greatly benefit from these new additions to their patent portfolio, that is what excites me the most.

 

[Basement_Modder]

You sure do have connections...

 

[jleemero]

Holy flax that's awesome.

 

[04tm34l3]

You sure do have connections...

I got the same email in my inbox. Probably if you just subscribe to their mailing list or gave them your email during a order or something.

 

[Bush]

Same here. I got it from getting "samples"

 

[bic]

Now if only they'd update their calculators and the prices thereof past 1996 levels...

 

[Basement_Modder]

Same here. I got it from getting "samples"

Just checked my email and saw I had gotten one, too.

 

[Hermaphroditus]

Now if only they'd update their calculators and the prices thereof past 1996 levels...

So true. It's ridiculous that their calculators have not improved in over ten years, yet the price has remained constant.

 

[PalmerTech]

I was under the impression that the main reason they do not update is because getting new models certified for SATs and other college test use is quite difficult, and they cannot add many new features without disqualifying themselves.

 

[Hermaphroditus]

That is probably the biggest reason, but that is in the lines of text saving and calculation features. They could make a better OS and upgrade the hardware. In the OS upgrade there could be a better area with which to create programs on the calculator itself, because as it stands it is much easier to write the programs in TI BASIC on the computer and then port them over. For hardware upgrades, more memory/RAM would be spectacular. I couldn't tell you how many times I have had too many programs unpacked to load an application. Speaking of applications, more memory would be nicer to allow more applications. And along the lines of standardized tests, they could implement the "test mode" that some calculators have that essentially turn a more advanced calculator into a TI-84+ with a better interface. Oh, and on hardware upgrades, a nicer screen with some sort of lighting apparatus would be nice. Ever try working on math homework when the teacher turns the lights down? It's easy to see your paper, but the screen is another story.

I could go on, but I think I'll stop here as this is not even the topic of this thread.

 

[XCVG]

For $180, I expect a colour backlit screen with a decent resolution, a processor that wasn't designed in 1976, and memory measured in mega- or gigabytes, not kilobytes. If they sold for $50, that would be another story.

In any case, does this mean we can get free samples of National stuff now?