When TI opened its doors, our founders believed that our company needed to be part of an intellectual community with strong ties to research universities in order to remain innovative. That philosophy continues today. Universities play a critical role in developing new technologies, providing a pipeline of engineering talent and building relationships with future customers.

In fact, we believe developing innovative products requires interdisciplinary teams that include members of the scientific community. For example, in the area of medical device technology, we partner with research universities that specialize in biomedical engineering. These partnerships allow TI to tap the minds of top biomedical engineers, doctors and hospitals, so they can help us understand which medical issues need addressing. At the same time, TI provides the schools with insight into technology trends and market opportunities.

Our relationships with universities go beyond funding to include advancing research innovation and increasing university/industry collaboration. We partner with renowned schools that have capabilities complementing ours.

TI's engineering community, including CEO Rich Templeton, spends a great deal of time visiting universities around the globe. During his university visits, Templeton meets with students and faculty and explores new areas of collaboration. He also explains to students how their training and talents will help solve problems that matter.

TI's university partnerships are integral to the company's efforts to build technology for the future. We worked with the state of Texas, the Nanoelectronics Research Corporation and the University of Texas system to make Texas a nanotechnology research hub. TI was the first company to contribute funding ($5 million) to establish the Southwest Academy of Nanoelectronics at the University of Texas at Austin.

In addition to these important university relations, TI has set apart an elite group of university partners, called Leadership Universities, where we have a close academic, research or recruiting relationship that would benefit from additional investment. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rice University and Georgia Tech in the U.S. have been the core of this network for many years.

As our business and customer base has become more global, the Leadership University network has also expanded from the initial three to seven in 2007 including the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore, India, and three universities in China: Tsinghua University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, and the University of Electronic Science and Technology. In total, these Chinese and Indian schools will receive nearly $2 million over the next five years to enhance research laboratories and strengthen both faculty and student understanding of DSP, analog and other technologies.