Texas Instruments (TI) has allocated $15 million to fund medical technology research at selected universities worldwide. The funding will support research and development of key emerging medical technologies, over a period of years, in areas like personal medical devices, implantables, medical imaging, wireless healthcare systems and biosensor technology.

"TI has always been at the forefront of technology research and we are very excited to partner with universities worldwide to help develop the next-generations of medical electronics that will allow our customers to improve the quality of healthcare and life," said Kent Novak, vice president of TI's medical business unit.

TI technology has been utilized in many recent advancements in the medical field, including portable imaging, wireless communications for patient monitoring, retinal prosthesis and DSP-based robotics to improve quality of life for amputees. The company's expertise and innovation in a broad range of semiconductor technologies including high-performance analog, digital signal processing, ultra-low-power microcontrollers, wireless connectivity and DLP, complement the demanding requirements of next-generation medical systems.

"In the 1990s, wireless communications systems, cell phones and PDAs were major areas of R&D and leading market drivers in the electronics industry. An outgrowth of these developments is higher system integration and lower power requirements. Many new and emerging medical systems are now utilizing these established technologies to improve patient monitoring in hospitals, for feature-enhanced personal care devices, and for rapidly modernizing healthcare systems in developing countries where standardized healthcare is virtually nonexistent," Novak added.

Texas Instruments provides innovative DSP and analog technologies to meet our customers' real world signal processing requirements. In addition to Semiconductor, the company includes the educational and productivity solutions business. Headquartered in Dallas, the company has manufacturing, design and sales operations in more than 25 countries.