Texas Instruments Records Digital Collection

SMU’s CUL Digital Collections has made available the Texas Instruments Records digital collection, which contains hundreds of photographic images and documents from the Texas Instruments (TI) records archive held by SMU’s DeGolyer Libraryand/or TI headquarters.

The Texas Instruments Records physical collection consists of over 1500 cubic feet of corporate records, photographs, and artifacts. The archive includes records of TI’s predecessor company, Geophysical Service Incorporated (GSI), papers of key executives, documents from key projects, early inventions, prototype products, and samples of consumer and business products. The collection documents the company’s extraordinary history, breadth of technological expertise, and role in the technological revolution. It is an especially rich source for students of business history, technology, and engineering.

Organized in 1930 as Geophysical Service, the company was formed to provide oil exploration services using the reflection seismograph. This technology used sound waves to look deep into the earth to search for oil deposits. By decade’s end, the company’s seismic crews were engaged by the world’s largest oil companies in virtually every major oil field.

Through reorganization, the oil exploration unit became a subsidiary named Geophysical Service Inc. (GSI). In 1941, the GSI subsidiary was sold to Eugene McDermott (cofounder of Geophysical Service) and key employees J. Erik Jonsson, Cecil H. Green, and H. Bates Peacock. In 1951, the company name was changed to Texas Instruments Incorporated, and in 1953, TI obtained its listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

Early developments include submarine-detection equipment (1941), the first commercial production of silicon transistors (1954), side-looking radar (1955), the integrated circuit (IC) (1958), thermal printing (1965), the electronic hand-held calculator (1967), thermocompression wire-bonding for IC assembly (1969), laser-guidance systems for missiles (1969), and the computer-on-a-chip (1971).

More recent developments include three-dimensional (3D) seismic data processing technology (1975), speech synthesis chips (1978), digital signal processors (1982), quantum-effect ICs that operate at room temperature (1993), and Digital Light Processing™ (DLP™) (1995).

The company is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with sales or manufacturing operations in more than 25 countries worldwide. Current businesses include semiconductors and technology. More information about TI is available on TI web site in the History of Innovationsection.

The digital collection contains a sampling of major Record Groups within the physical collection. For more information on how the physical collection is arranged, please view the finding aid.