"For TI, consumer electronics has been a very small part of our recent past but it is becoming a huge part of our future," Thomas Engibous, chairman and chief executive of the Dallas-based firm, told a news conference in Tokyo.

"A major part of our strategy for consumer electronics involves active collaboration with Japanese manufacturers," he said.

Texas Instruments Inc. has already teamed up with Japanese counterpart Sharp Corp. to develop parts for picture-snapping mobile phones.

"We are very interested in other collaborations, some of which are ongoing and are not public," Engibous said, without elaborating further.

"Because the growth of electronics is being driven by the growth in digital consumer electronics, we believe the Japan region for TI will be more important going forward in the next intermediate number of years than it has been in the past five to seven years."

In the three months to June just ended, TI's revenue from Japan grew the strongest worldwide -- up 10 percent from the previous quarter -- and sales in the rest of Asia increased five percent.

In contrast, revenue from Europe and the United States was basically flat.

"The heart and soul of digital consumer electronics is still in Japan," said Engibous.

Japanese firms, such as NTT DoCoMo Inc., lead the world in third generation mobile phone technology -- which offers high-speed Internet access and enables users to take photographs -- an important new business area for TI.

"The wireless market in the United States lags the wireless market in Europe which lags the wireless market in Japan," Engibous said.

"The United States, from a terminal standpoint, is probably the least exciting of all the regions in the world," the chief executive said.

On the other hand, "China is the highlight (of) growth for wireless communication."

TI will continue to invest in Japan to develop its digital consumer electronics and multi-media mobile phone businesses, he said.

It will also expand sales and marketing operations in China.

However, after announcing in June a plan to build a three-billion-dollar semiconductor factory in Texas by the end of 2005, the firm has no need for a new manufacturing plant in China in the "immediate near future," said Engibous.

The Texas plant "should take us to the (latter part) of this decade and maybe through it before we need to make another major ... investment," he said.

SPACE.WIRE