What is the next growth engine for Texas Instruments Inc.? The company's CEO, Richard Templeton, says it's analog. It's a kind of surprise to hear it from a semiconductor firm that won accolades for being DSP maestro and baseband king not long ago.

Not surprisingly, however, TI is the world's largest analog chipmaker, owning 13 percent of market share in this fragmented segment, and nearly half of its revenue coming from analog and mixed-signal business. While TI plans to continue to expand its efforts in DSP, Digital Light Processing and other segments, analog and mixed-signal business will become a key growth driver for the IC vendor.

Analog is growing faster than the overall semiconductor market. The analog market grew by 15 percent in 2006, and according to TI executives, it is expected to grow from 2007 to 2011 with a CAGR of 12 percent.

In the book Microcosm, author George Gilder traced the history of analog chips to the inception of op amps at companies like Analog Devices Inc. and National Semiconductor Corp. Pioneers including Ray Stata and Robert Wilder used transistors to create smaller and more useful op amps and thus helped create a multibillion dollar industry.

Analog has come a long way since then. And in its remarkable journey of creativity and innovation, there came many turning points when pundits declared the death of analog. The advent of DTV was one such instance, but what we witnessed was the opposite. Analog chips are facilitating more robust designs in products such as DTV and 3G handsets. Almost every electronic system needs some kind of device to translate levels of temperature, pressure, light, sound etc. into electrical signals that a digital device can use.

There is a lot happening in the analog space. All the key facets of analog business—RF, wireless, wireline, power management, audio, video and interface—are enjoying growth. Then there is the ongoing marriage of power management devices and the rest of analog functionality. Moreover, doors are opening wider for memory integration in the analog space.

Another key area to watch in the analog context would be the SoC space that is transforming the silicon landscape and is also a strong influence on systems design. More powerful SoC devices encompass greater functionality and thus are critical in changing the BOM equation for the benefit of system makers.

Analog and mixed-signal devices are increasingly coming into the SoC fold. How this will affect the discrete analog IC supply and its impact on system design will be an interesting development for this publication to cover.

At this time when there is much talk about the need for better understanding of markets outside the United States—and in that context more effectively relating these markets to cultural and geographical regions like Asia—analog is a very critical market segment to watch.

All these signs have motivated us to start a new analog section. It will carry analog market insights, tutorials, how-to design articles and commentaries on critical issues in the analog domain. We are marking this era of consolidation in analog and mixed-signal business by launching this section, and we sincerely hope that it will allow us to serve our readers better. We welcome your feedback about content for this section at mkamran@eetasia.com.

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