First and foremost, as we predicted back in March, the overall demand for high-speed modems and disk drives--and thus TI's DSP chipsets--has been much weaker than anyone anticipated.

FORBES: Beyond the sunset

In the two years since the sudden death of CEO Jerry Junkins, TI has sold 13 non-DSP business units.

FORBES: Beyond the sunset

And while TI remains far and away the DSP market leader, it also faces significant competition from Lucent Technologies, Motorola and Analog Devices.

FORBES: Beyond the sunset

The other problem is that the bright boys at TI aren't the only ones to notice DSP's promise.

FORBES: Beyond the sunset

In the same two-year period, TI has bought more than a half-dozen DSP-related businesses, including SSi, Amati, Tartan and Go DSP.

FORBES: Beyond the sunset

So the executives at TI decided to reinvent the company as a nearly pure DSP play.

FORBES: Beyond the sunset

In June IBM announced that it was entering the DSP business, taking direct aim at a popular TI chip used in cellular telephones.

FORBES: Beyond the sunset

For example you might have Texas Instrument or TI which is the biggest supplier in the base-band market or DSP (Digital Signal Processing) but still have competition from the likes of Lucent, Motorola, Qualcomm.

CNN: Business: Inside the Semiconductor Boom