Release set for Q1 2004 Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) plans to release samples of its latest OMAP chip, which will also be the company’s first 90 nanometer chip, in the first quarter of 2004, it said Thursday.The OMAP 1710 will run 10 percent faster than its OMAP 1610 predecessor and consume 50 percent less power, taking advantage of the drop in power consumption afforded by a process technology jump, TI said.The OMAP product line is designed for cell phones and other mobile devices. Nokia Corp.’s cell phones use TI’s OMAP chips, as well as PalmOne Inc.’s Treo 600 smart phone. TI increased the clock speed on the OMAP 1710 to 220MHz, up 10 percent from the 200MHz clock speed of the 1610, and doubled the cache. The new chip will outperform the 1610 by about 40 percent, TI said.The chip comes with an applications processor core designed by Arm Ltd., and a digital signal processor core to handle communications. TI’s customers can pair the OMAP 1710 with wireless chipsets that support GSM/GPRS (Global System for Mobile Communications/General Packet Radio Services), EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution), CDMA2000 1X (Code Division Multiple Access) or UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications Services) networks.Phone designers can run several different operating systems for the new chip, including Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Mobile 2003, Linux, PalmSource Inc.’s PalmOS and the Symbian operating system. The OMAP 1710 will be ready to ship by the middle of 2004, a TI spokeswoman said.Intel Corp. is expected to release its first 90 nanometer chip in early 2004, and other chip companies plan to roll out chip based on the technology over the year, including Advanced Micro Devices Inc., IBM Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. Technology Industry