Features

Palm Inc. chooses Texas Instruments to supply chips for wireless devices

The Associated Press
Tuesday December 18, 2001

SAN JOSE — Palm Inc. said Monday it has chosen Texas Instruments as the “preferred supplier” of chips for its next generation of wireless handheld devices. 

The deal, however, is not exclusive, said Todd Bradley, executive vice president and chief operating officer for Palm’s Solutions Group, which handles Palm’s hardware products. 

Bradley said Palm continues to work also with Intel Corp. and Motorola Corp. to develop microprocessors based on ARM architecture, which has become a chip standard to support demanding wireless applications, such as streaming video or handling voice data. 

Shares of Santa Clara-based Palm fell 30 cents, or more than 8 percent, to $3.17 in Monday trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market. 

It’s likely investors were reacting to the announcement that the next-generation products using Texas Instruments’ chips will not be introduced until the end of next year, said Thomas Sepenzis, an analyst at CIBC World Markets Corp. 

“The expectation was that they would have it by June,” he said. 

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.