Gene Frantz's expert insight helps TI deliver technology that enables customers to create products not previously conceived.

Gene Frantz always knew he wanted to be an engineer. He spent much of his youth taking things apart and earning his parents' clemency by convincing them it was all in the name of discovery.

Now, as a TI Principal Fellow and one of the industry's foremost experts in signal processing technology, Frantz continues to help deliver technology that enables TI customers to create cool new products.

Consumers experience signal processing today as "real time" technology in thousands of electronic devices. Frantz first developed early signal processing as speech technology for TI's Speak & Spell™ learning aids in the mid-1970's. The same technology that was in those iconic toys makes small, affordable smart phones possible today. Frantz lists watching children gather around a Speak & Spell at a toy store as one of the proudest moments in his life.

Driving a healthcare revolution
Throughout his tenure at TI, Frantz has been recognized by his colleagues as an engineer who has his fingers on the pulse of future trends.

"What gets me out of bed is the opportunity to do the impossible," Frantz says. "I use an alternate definition of impossible — I define it as 'it hasn't been done yet' rather than 'it can't be done.'"

Frantz recently spoke at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) about how technology is changing the future of medicine.

"Imagine being alerted by your alarm clock to the need to visit your doctor and having that device schedule an appointment for you on the spot. That's the kind of change that technology can bring to improve the doctor-patient relationship," he said. "Technology makes it possible to manage chronic disease, predict catastrophic disease and help us live comfortably at home."

Innovative technologies can create changes to the doctor-patient relationship that are critically important to bridging the gap between passive patients and informed medical consumers, Frantz said.

"The doctor-patient relationship will never go away, but what we can do is make a better and convenient way to grow the relationship without spending a whole lot of time," he said. "It's amazing how technology can help the doctor-patient relationship be independent of distance."

Frantz said an important aspect of medical technology is how it can allow people to live comfortably at home in the last days of life. He ponders how technology can be used so that the information necessary to ensure a person is healthy is properly captured and an alert is given if there is an issue.

For instance, an alarm could be sent to the individual or the individual's primary caregivers if that the person did not get out of bed one morning or if something seems out of the ordinary, such as appearing to limp.

"Semiconductors give us the ability to create the enabling technology to do all of that," Frantz said.