Around TI

Getting to TI on two wheels

Around TI — Fri, 17 May 2013 13:00:00 GMT

TI was recently included as one of 63 new Bicycle Friendly Businesses (BFB) from across the country from The League of American Bicyclists. And with spring in the air and May being Bike to Work month, it’s the ideal time to hit the pavement on two wheels.

"Texas Instruments sees great value in supporting alternative commuting solutions for employees," said David Thomas, vice president and manager of Worldwide Facilities at TI.

"We've invested resources to build bike paths that connect to local trails, added bike racks, repair stations and onsite showers, and created social networks that support TI bike commuters. We want to make it easy for our existing bike commuters to get to work safely and to encourage more employees to try biking to work.”

To read more about TI making the Bicycle Friendly Business list, visit our Corporate Citizenship News site.

Welcoming TI's summer interns. Wise words from TI's Dave Freeman.

Around TI — Thu, 16 May 2013 13:00:00 GMT

“We have quite a few summer interns come into our lab and they certainly bring a new level of energy with them. The students find that not only are they assigned to engaging and interesting projects but they are surrounded by many different and attractive technology developments. This gives them opportunities to collaborate outside their day to day work. A common comment at the end of the summer term is how fast their time in the lab has gone by. I think this is what happens when you are very focused on technology development and the future while having fun.” - Dave Freeman, Texas Instruments Fellow and Chief Technologist for Power Supply Solutions in the Power Management business unit

TI extends a warm welcome to its summer interns! And to check out more from Dave Freeman and his work with students, visit Dave's Powertrip series on the Power House blog.

Xiaolin Lu First Woman and TIer Named Co-Chair of Jonsson School’s IAB

Around TI — Tue, 14 May 2013 13:00:00 GMT

Tier Xiaolin Lu, currently the smart grid R&D manager, has made history twice: she’s both the first woman co-chair and first TI employee to be appointed to the University of Texas at Dallas’ Jonsson School Industrial Advisory Board.

The IAB is a council of more than 60 representatives of close to 40 companies and organizations. Their purpose is to provide an industrial perspective on the direction and strategy for the school’s curricula, as well as to promote the school among local industry, school districts, and North Texas overall. With 17 years of experience at TI and over 22 U.S. patents under her belt, Lu is in a prime position to guide students looking to break into her industry.

"Being an IAB co-chair gives me the opportunity to serve the community by helping to build a state-of-the-art, high-tech engineering and education facility for Texas," Lu said. "In this board role, I will also be able to strengthen the relationship and impact that companies like TI have with UT Dallas and help to further develop the students' critical innovative skills by influencing the direction of the school's science, technology, engineering and math programs."

TI’s founders, Erik Jonsson, Eugene McDermott, and Cecil Green were responsible for the establishment of the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science with the goal of providing TI’s engineers and scientists with the best, most advanced training. Fostering the next generation of engineers is and has always been a top priority for TI. Lu’s involvement with the IAB is yet another example of TI’s longstanding partnership with UT Dallas.

TI inspires budding engineers at Santa Clara career fair

Around TI — Fri, 10 May 2013 13:00:00 GMT

TI and the Frank Greene Scholars Program (GSP) - a long-term initiative that promotes the development of a community of college-bound scholars focused on extending their academic gifts in science and math - recently sponsored a career fair at TI's Santa Clara, Calif., site. TI hosted 60 middle and high school college-bound African-American scholars, who came dressed for success with resumés in hand.

The students participated in mock interviews conducted by 35 professionals, including 14 TI employees. They also attended a workshop titled "Find a Career, Not A Job,” which included a panel of six TI employees representing product development, marketing and sales.

While the students were sharpening their interview skills, their parents heard from Human Resource professionals about what today's high-tech companies are looking for in new employees. And third to fifth grade students joined in on an interactive workshop to help them develop their social skills.

Tommy Jewel, a TI engineer, volunteered as a speaker with the third- to fifth-graders, interviewed students and participated on the panel.

"I had a great time," Jewl said. "All of the students were so impressive. The third- to fifth-graders asked great questions, including what adversities I personally faced and how I have dealt with them.”

"And the young man I interviewed was already so accomplished as a 10th-grader – he had amazing academic and athletic achievements as well as community service. His answers showed great knowledge of what he wanted and where he was going. I left inspired and feeling assured about the next generation of leaders."

The Dr. Frank S. Greene Scholars Program, which TI has an ongoing partnership with, is sponsored by the California Alliance of African American Educators and helps to increase the number of African-American youth choosing science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) career paths through high school, college and into their professional lives.

Read more about the career fair on our Corporate Citizenship new site.

TI collaborates with University of Texas at Dallas to improve wafer production efficiency – applying big data approaches to test data

Around TI — Thu, 09 May 2013 13:00:00 GMT

There’s a new field in engineering – it’s called adaptive test. This new field has multiple sub-areas with innovation potential, and one of these areas – which TI has partnered with University of Texas at Dallas researchers to study -- is test-cost reduction. It involves developing methods aimed at increasing wafer manufacturing efficiency while also maintaining – or even improving – quality.

The project initiated about three years ago, when Yiorgos Makris, a Yale University faculty member at the time, was awarded a Semiconductor Research Corporation grant for adaptive test research in this area. Makris needed industrial data to demonstrate his methods, and John Carulli, a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff at TI, was able to help.

The two worked together several times a year on exchanging research and results before Makris joined the University of Texas at Dallas faculty as an associate professor in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science. That’s when they began to collaborate more frequently. “As we were demonstrating the new methods we were creating, we had to explore,” Makris says.

The basic premise of the research is that sampled test data from a few die locations on a wafer could determine whether all of the sites on the wafer are good or bad. This would make it possible to test far fewer die locations yet make an educated and accurate guess on the rest of the batch -- dramatically reducing wafer test time.

Post doctorial researcher Ke Huang, along with Makris, Carulli and former student Nathan Kupp, published a paper on the project titled “Handling Discontinuous Effects in Modeling Spatial Correlation of Wafer-level Analog/RF Tests,” at the Design Automation and Test in Europe conference in 2013. It’s the premiere test conference in Europe; their work nabbed them the best paper award.

Carulli says that that there are different ways to use the results of wafer data collection. “We can leverage this data understanding to test, say, 100 die on a wafer instead of 1,000, but we could have a good idea of what those other 900 points would do,” Carulli says. “There are a lot of different things we could do with this, such as making predictions and telling testers what to look for to be faster or improve quality.”

It’s an area and project that many, including TI test engineer Amit Nahar, have been working on. Nahar was also funded by the SRC as a Portland State University student, and joined TI after receiving his master’s degree in 2005.

Nahar now manages TI’s adaptive test research group, where he “uses test measurements like voltages, frequencies and currents to identify adaptive test strategies,” he says, and collaborates with Carulli and Makris. Another one of Makris’ students – Constantinos Xanthopoulos – will begin a TI SRC Internship in June to collaborate with Nahar and try out methods in pilot production that have been developed at UT Dallas.

Makris says the high volume production test data from TI is an important factor in the project. “We rely on data to understand industrial environments in order to make our methods more relevant, so we need to be able to test and prove our work in a lab.”

Plus, he says, “UT Dallas and TI have a long history, and they are synergistically connected in a very important way. So for us to be able to interact with TI is a win-win situation.”

While the project is slated to wrap at summer’s end, Makris is hoping that the results will show the value in additional research. “We have been among the few groups who started looking at all these statistical methods more than 10 years ago, and this is becoming a hot area with many more players,” he says.

Nahar agrees. “It’s a relatively new field, and basically there are tons of possibilities for us to improve quality and reduce test cost,” he says. “A motivator for me is to research and develop these new methods for adaptive test”

Take Ten: Q&A with Karthik Vasanth, General Manager for TI's Medical and High Reliability Business

Around TI — Tue, 07 May 2013 13:00:00 GMT

TI India Educators Conference: fierce competition, incredible innovations, and the hunt for a $10,000 prize

Around TI — Fri, 03 May 2013 13:00:00 GMT

Vaishnavi Govindarajan and Priyanka PR, fourth-year engineering students of M.S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology in Bangalore, were busy putting the final touches on "eLock-Holmes," a device used to detect a person's emotions. A wristband with silver chloride electrodes attached to a Bluetooth module uses a simple algorithm to help determine what emotion a person is feeling.

Nearby, Manoj Kumar and Sagar Simha, research assistants at Indian Institute of Science were demonstrating their solution called "The Infinite Coffee Cup." The solution uses 3-D cameras, powered by digital signal processors, in cafés so waiters can get alerts on their mobile phones about which customer's coffee cup is empty.

Featuring 357 teams from 100 colleges, and nearly 2,500 students in total, the TI India Educators Conference brought together the brightest minds in pursuit of engineering excellence.

The conference also included a ceremony to award the 2012-13 TI India Analog Design Contest prizes. $10,000 was up for grabs – awarded to students from National Institutes of Technology based in Surathkal and Tiruchirapalli. Students of BNM Institute of Technology and BMS College of Engineering in Bangalore were named the second and third place winners, who took home $5,000 and $2,000, respectively. Each design project featured a combination of at least three TI ICs.

"TI is committed to nurture engineering talent, and our university programs bring together all those who work towards the common goal of equipping our students with industry-necessary skill sets," said Steve Lyle, director of Diversity and Workforce Development at TI. "As a company focused on innovation, we hope to inspire students to get creative with technology and chip design."

The conference didn’t just feature the best-of-the-best innovations. Sixteen technical sessions, 91 technical papers and 20 poster papers on system and application design were presented to more than 700 students, academicians and professionals from engineering colleges across India.

What’s next for India’s future innovators? The "Texas Instruments Innovation Challenge: India Analog Design Contest.” This two-tiered contest will be held at the college level across India beginning next month, culminating in a national level contest in April 2014.

TI Analog Design Engineer Wins Innovator of the Year Award

Around TI — Thu, 02 May 2013 13:00:00 GMT

TI analog design engineer, Yogesh Ramadass, was “One to Watch” back in January and has definitely earned that distinction. Ramadass has just been named Innovator of the Year in UBM’s 2013 Annual Creativity in Electronics Awards (UBM ACE Awards) for the energy harvesting work he’s so passionate about. He has been focused on next-generation energy harvesting chips, while helping develop high-power mobile phone charging systems.

Here is what this prestigious award means to him.

Congratulations on being named the Innovator of the Year! What does this accomplishment mean to you?

Personally, it is very gratifying winning this prestigious award. It is a great recognition for the efforts that TI’s battery management team and I have put in over the last few years in getting energy harvesting projects off the ground, and bringing industry-leading products out to the market. Moving forward, it is a huge motivation for our team to develop better, more innovative products for existing and emerging markets.

Innovation is a term that we all hear quite often. What is your take on being innovative?

Innovation is not just about having a new idea. It is about believing in it, being committed to it, and putting in the work to implement it. I like to use the example that it is OK to reinvent the wheel, as long as you end up with a newer wheel design and gain more insights along the way.

Where do you think your work in energy harvesting will be in 5, 10 and 20 years?

I hope our energy harvesting products will be everywhere - in a variety of electronic products in our homes to far-flung areas for remote sensing; wearable electronic monitors to safety sensors in big industrial settings. The possibilities really are endless.

Read more about Ramadass and his award in this EE Times article.

Georgia Tech students working to improve Parkinson’s patients’ lives

Around TI — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 13:00:00 GMT

It was a light-bulb moment: the idea sparked with a TI wristwatch. Georgia Institute of Technology bioengineering PhD student Teresa Sanders, a TI Fellow through the TI Leadership University Program, was working with Emory University Parkinson’s Disease specialists, and received an eZ430-Chronos watch from TI. She had a thought: A watch with an accelerometer could measure limb tremors and be paired with other tools to assess patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD).

Now, she’s setting out to prove it – and in turn, improve lives.

Sanders is hoping to create a new system that can help patients continually monitor symptoms – even at home -- so that they can be correctly medicated. “We believe that the new monitoring system will be very helpful in regulating their treatment,” Sanders says. “We want to increase the number of good hours PD patients have, and that’s what I’m focused on.”PD is a progressively worsening nervous-system disorder that affects movement. It can cause tremors, slow movement, and cause muscle stiffness. In many patients, the effects of medications fluctuate substantially throughout the day, and monitoring the symptoms and adjusting the medication dosage is difficult and time-intensive.

Sanders, who worked as an electrical engineer before pursuing her doctorate degree at Georgia Tech, connected a Metawatch wristwatch (which uses TI’s MSP430 microcontroller and CC2564 Bluetooth®/Bluetooth low energy IC to store and send information respectively) with a smartphone (worn on the body to track movement speed and trunk stability, and process tremor information from the watch) to make it feasible to automatically monitor symptoms statistics. “We’re trying to do something that is easy for the patient to use and can remotely transmit information,” Sanders says.

While smartphones are used today to measure tremors (with a patient holding the phone), the theory that Sanders is proposing, of connecting the watch to the phone, is novel. “It’s still experimental because it’s so new,” Sanders says. “Right now, we’re collecting data in the lab. We need to do a pre-clinical trial and benchmark the system using real patients. But we’re pretty excited about it.”

Sanders has been researching the subject for about six months, and has partnered with Emory University researchers who have provided a wealth of data and are also a part of the project’s provisional patent. Georgia Tech undergrad student Lydia Hylton, who competed for and won one of the school’s President’s Undergraduate Research Awards (PURA) after reading research papers on the project and writing a proposal, will also be working with Sanders this summer.

“We’re trying to improve the quality of life for PD patients,” says Sanders, whose efforts are contributing to earning her PhD. “While working in the electrical engineering field, I was intrigued by the discoveries in bioengineering. This project is a great opportunity to apply bioengineering research.”

National Math and Science Initiative endows UTeach program at two North Texas universities

Around TI — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 13:00:00 GMT

The National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI) recently awarded $12 million in challenge grants to endow the highly successful UTeach programs at 12 American universities, including two supported by the Texas Instruments Foundation.

NMSI awarded $1 million to each of 12 universities that have raised matching funds and met performance benchmarks for implementing the UTeach program to recruit and train college students to become math and science teachers.

"We're proud to support UTeach, which is making a real difference in addressing the critical shortage of math and science teachers in our schools," said Ann Pomykal, Texas Instruments Foundation executive director. "The Texas Instruments Foundation has been involved from the beginning with the North Texas universities in this program, and we're glad to see the matching grants that extend our investments for even greater results in the future."

The TI Foundation has supported two universities receiving the NMSI awards, the University of North Texas (UNT) and the University of Texas at Dallas, with grants to expand existing UTeach centers.

To read the full story, please visit our Corporate Citizenship news site.

You might own a car that drives itself – sooner than you think. Autonomous vehicles are in the not-so-distant future.

Around TI — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 17:07:00 GMT

Imagine a car that can fully function alone. It can take an elderly family member to the pharmacy for a prescription. It can drive a blind person to the park. It’s intelligent enough – and capable enough – to take you wherever you need to go without human input. All you have to do is enter your address in the navigation system.

We’re not talking about the fictional worlds of Batman or Total Recall. We’re talking about a technology that is closer to coming to fruition than most people realize. It’s technology that TI is already working to help develop. “People had thought that the idea of a self-driving car was 20 years away. Now, they are believing it’s 10 years away, so it’s really exciting,” says Bill Krenik, TI’s chief technologist of high-volume linear products. “It’s an idea that has really taken off now and we’re seeing some really cool things happen.”

Krenik recently joined Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF); Jason Schulz, a Toyota Motor sales partnership manager; Chris Urmson, a leader from Google’s self-driving car program; and Washington, D.C. city council member Mary Cheh in an ITIF panel discussion on Capitol Hill.

(Please visit the site to view this video)

The “The Social and Economic Case for Autonomous Vehicles” discussion, which you can watch here, covered the social and economic benefits of automated vehicles. ITIF’s Robert Atkinson opened the talk, pointing out that human error is the cause of 93 percent of today’s accidents.

Replacing a human “with a machine that doesn’t really cause errors,” could significantly decrease the 36,500 traffic fatalities – and $450 billion in economic losses -- that occur yearly nationwide, Atkinson says. These vehicles also could help reduce the $200 billion in economic losses and environmental damage from traffic congestion.

That’s a big impact. What’s more, Krenik says, these cars can be used with the same infrastructure -- or with minimal road enhancements. And, with autonomous cars, the distance between each car on the road could decrease – which would increase the number of cars able to quickly move from one location to another. “It can save tens of thousands of lives, reduce environmental impact, improve economic efficiency, and improve quality of life,” Krenik says. “For many people, this technology will mean a lot.”

From research at the university level to corporate, TI is among those working to pioneer technology that can be used in these vehicles of the future. Krenik says that TI is currently supplying components for brake and control systems – such as computer vision, advanced braking, traction and stability control, and electrical power systems – that are being used in experimental vehicles being created today.

TI’s technologies (see the full range of TI’s automotive progress here) will be the enablers in the autonomous system of the future, he says. “These are the pieces upon which autonomous transportation will be built.”

Autonomous transportation in general isn’t new – for instance, many airport trains and certain planes are already automated. “It’s much harder to build an autonomous car than a train, but it’s not as foreign of a concept as people think,” Krenik says.

In fact, Google has already created several autonomous cars using the Toyota Prius, and launched a program in 2009 that began testing the vehicles – in real traffic. The cars are “equipped with sensing that allows them to see comparable or better than a person, they can see traffic lights, pedestrians in the road, they can see vehicles as they move around them,” and even drive carefully through toll booths, Google’s Urmson said in the discussion.

It’s proof that the technology can work. And proof that you might be driving in a robotic vehicle sooner than later. “It’s really exciting,” Krenik says. We’re ready for a ride.

Meet the unexpected man behind the marketing: TI’s Brad Ruzicka

Around TI — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:57:00 GMT

He’s an engineer – turned university campus inspirer. TI worldwide university marketing manager Brad Ruzicka’s path to his current position at TI follows an unlikely route.

When Ruzicka was young, he had a passion for science and math. Math, science and technology magnet programs in middle and high school helped foster his passion and so did his father, a 20-year IBM vet, who brought home his first computer – an IBM XT machine – when Ruzicka was just 8 years old. “I started tinkering with that, learning about how an operating system interacted with hardware, and it increased my interest even more in electronics and technology,” he says.

Ruzicka scored a full scholarship to the University of Texas at Dallas, where he pursued a telecommunications engineering degree. During his sophomore year, he interned at Alcatel, where he helped a technical assistance center team manage the lab and equipment. “It was my first taste of corporate life – and I knew I was in the right place,” he says, “I got to take what I was learning in the classroom and apply it to real-world applications.”

He earned his undergraduate degree in 2004, and nabbed his first job at Hewlett-Packard as a systems product engineer. There, he oversaw manufacturing and test processes for their high-end server solutions. “I got to travel to customer sites and had even more experience with customers during server installation,” he says. “That piqued my interest in getting more acquainted with the business side, and understanding customer requirements.”

That led him to enroll in UT Dallas’ MBA program. He took part-time classes, and graduated in three years. After earning his MBA, Ruzicka had the opportunity to join TI as a product marketing engineer supporting the Interface business. It’s the role that he says prepared him for his current position today.

“I was out visiting with customers, I had a small portfolio of products I was supporting, and I was releasing products to the market and helping the sales teams in different regions engage customers we could work with,” he says. “It was an opportunity that brought me full-circle. I loved tinkering with things and working on them from a product perspective, but I learned how to appreciate the business side of things.”

Ruzicka helped his team grow revenue and expand the customer base before holding the same position for TI’s high volume linear businesses. Then, he had a new opportunity – joining and leading the university marketing team. In this role, he’s able to use his broad, systems-level engineering knowledge and marketing skills to help collegiate professors educate and inspire students on campus. “I put chips in the hands of students so they can do hands-on work and take the theories they learn in the classroom to do hands-on experiments and lab exercises,” he says.

It’s about engaging students, and “making sure they have a full suite of tools in their arsenal,” he says. “It’s to expose them to TI, but also for the betterment of engineering in general. The goal is to give them valuable hands-on knowledge that will get them industry-ready.”

While he’s no longer in the lab building the circuits, he still has the ability to tinker outside work. Though, most of his time is spent with his wife and two young children. “I’m already starting to teach my children about technology,” he says. “I can see in my oldest son that he’s already interested in science and math.”

And, of course, he’s always staying on top of tech trends. “I’m still really excited about what the future of technology holds, and I always want to be on the leading edge to some degree,” he says.

TIer Don Shaver is a tireless advocate for Power Line Communications standardization. For that, he just nabbed an IEEE award.

Around TI — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 13:00:00 GMT

“You are the recipient of the IEEE ComSoc Technical Committee on Power Line Communications 2013 TC-PLC Inter-disciplinary Research and Application Award,” the email read. The recipient: TIer Don Shaver, who is so humble, he nearly deleted the email before reading it – he was pleasantly surprised when he discovered it was for him.

Shaver is a TI Fellow and 36-year veteran who has held multiple roles within the company, including directing new technology business and international standards. He has developed systems, software and application-specific processors in defense, geophysical and communications applications, and established two TI semiconductor research and development laboratories.

He’s also the director of industrial relations in the 10-member Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) TC-PLC Technical Committee, which spans all areas of communications over power lines, including smart metering, automotive applications and in-home energy management. The committee’s goal: to monitor the analytical, theoretical, simulation, experimental and practical aspects of digital communications over power lines. And, to help set design and standard guidelines.

The committee also works to organize events, sponsor conferences, and promote the development of standards through papers and workshops. Basically, it’s an essential job that requires time devoted to helping drive PLC-related developments in the IEEE (of which Shaver is a senior member). It’s extra time that Shaver commits.

It ties to his current role as a chief architect for TI’s Smart Grid business unit. Shaver is always looking for next-generation technology, and works to find ways to improve products and pinpoint areas where TI can differentiate and innovate -- and not just in power line communications.

Shaver has devoted time to international standards activities and alliances for more than two decades, and is expected to reach completion of setting key narrowband PLC standards this year. “If you don’t have standards, your technology is not going to be successful in the market,” he says.

On the side, he also represents TI’s Smart Grid solutions across additional organizations like the International Telecommunications Union, and drives TI’s influence on governmental standards and regulatory activities. He has also been awarded 16 patents.

It’s a long list of accomplishments. Yet despite this, and the award, Shaver remains modest. “The award was quite a pleasant surprise, because you don’t actually strive for this kind of recognition,” he says. “The goal is to make contributions to the technical and industrial community in order to help align TI with the industry. But it’s also like a pat on the back – it motives me to continue doing this.”

TI hosts talk with academy founder who is making STEM resources available to all

Around TI — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 13:00:00 GMT

TI recently hosted a conversation about science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education with Salman Khan, founder and executive director of the Khan Academy. Khan, who shared his perspective on the future of education, was joined by representatives of the Dallas Regional Chamber, EducateTexas and Austin College.

Khan Academy is a nonprofit organization with the goal of changing education for the better by "providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere." The educational resources provided on the academy's website are available to anyone for free. The site hosts more than 4,000 kindergarten-through-12th-grade education videos covering topics from biology, chemistry and physics to the humanities and art.

Read the full story on the Corporate Citizenship news site.

TIer Sam Ciani is an EOP Employee of the Year

Around TI — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 22:42:00 GMT

TI Sherman wafer manufacturing facility manager Sam Ciani oversees more than 580 employees, managing the equipment, schedules and people who support the manufacturing facility. Outside of TI, he is an active community advocate. Ciani has just been recognized for these professional achievements, community outreach efforts and contributions as a role model by Equal Opportunity Publications, Inc. (EOP, Inc.).

Ciani is one of 10 people nationwide who received a 2013 Employee of the Year award on April 11, the evening before the EOP Publications CAREERS & the disABLED magazine’s Boston Career Expo. The award is given to employees of progressive employers that recruit, hire and promote people with disabilities.

He’s done just that – he has been a board member for United Way of Grayson County for more than a decade, and is currently board chair. He is also on the Sherman Chamber of Commerce board (and has served as board chair), and is board chair for Texoma Workforce Solutions. And he’s about to be featured in print – he’ll be profiled in a special issue of CAREERS & the disABLED magazine, which will be available to subscribers this month.

“It was an honor and also quite humbling to receive this award for doing what I consider to be a privilege for both my community and employer," Ciani says. "Especially after meeting my fellow award winners -- they included a member of the executive staff of the FBI’s criminal, cyber, response and services branch, as well as the 2010 Ironman World Champion of the Physically Challenged division.”

Ciani began his TI career in 1980 as a design engineer, and has held a number of positions. For the past six years, he has been the wafer fab manager for TI’s manufacturing facility in Sherman, where he also manages such site-related issues as permitting, business issues and community outreach efforts. This fab is typically one of TI’s top three busiest factories.