Texas Instruments Inc. recently celebrated the 25th anniversary of the digital signal processor (DSP). To gain an insight on the past, present and future of DSPs, EE Times caught up with Michael Hames, senior vice president and manager of application specific products at TI (Dallas). Hames, who joined TI in 1980, is responsible for the development, manufacturing and marketing of DSPs, microcontrollers, ASICs and Sparc products at the company. In a recent interview, the TI executive also talked about DSP farms, multicore devices, IC design and the overall challenges of the IC industry. TI also has its own set of challenges.