If Dockers galvanized Levi’s jeans into a multi-billion dollar global business, then the folks at Motorola creating an intelligent chip ingredient and christening it DigitalDNA have galvanized the world of embedded computing. It promises simplicity, ease and comfort — driving new technologies and spawning applications to make life a little simpler and as easy as getting into your faded blues.

DigitalDNA, the smart chip ingredient, was born of “Get Smart” — the spirit driving Motorola to go beyond mere line extension to focus on what consumers and corporations are demanding from technology. It’s a brand that represents Motorola’s semiconductor business. And like any brand, it represents a value proposition for the company’s customers. Its pitch: It’s the heart of smart. Its goal: Simplifying technology in a world deluged by products that are becoming technologically more complex. What is the heart of smart? It’s a technophile’s delight. Put intelligence in the product through the silicon, throw in video, data, speech, gestures, Internet connectivity, mobile/in-home flexibility, and voila! You have a formidable system-on-chip technology that’s sprinting towards a smarter tomorrow.

The Names Behind the Technology

Where did the ideas for intelligent embedded solutions come from? How did they congeal into a niche brand that makes today’s smart products work smarter? According to Hector de J. Ruiz, president of Motorola Semiconductor Products sector, “We believe that if we listen carefully to the consumer, we actually will be able to help our customers by creating better products for them. I believe that life has become unnecessarily complicated through technology — and I think DigitalDNA is the first attempt to simplify life and make it actually more valuable, better and more fun.” His role as captain of the ship is to crystallize this vision into workable solutions that can spell the difference between a shelf-sliding no-show and a brilliant must-have product like the five-ounce Motorola i1000plus cell phone that packs two-way audio, an Internet microbrowser, email, fax, and doubles as a wireless modem.

Spearheading Process Technology development for Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector, headquartered in Austin, is Padmasree Warrior, vice president and assistant director of DigitalDNA Laboratories. Warrior is instrumental in driving a leadership technology roadmap that leverages Motorola SPS as a premier system-on-a-chip provider and morphing technology innovations into customer-focused solutions. She has been directly responsible for driving two process technology platforms that provide DigitalDNA solutions from Motorola — the RSLDMR platform and the CMOS platform, a core market technology to build on for the other functionalities — and is also currently responsible for driving all of the process technology platforms. “This is really the foundation for the DigitalDNA solutions from Motorola. This is really the core process technology on which the design, software and everything else, is built upon. Generally what we are doing today is driving a platform methodology focusing on standardization,” she says.