The coordinates, 32 54.7 N, 96 45.1 W, point to the front entrance of TI's worldwide headquarters on the company's Forest Lane Campus. "The coordinates themselves were dictated by our client," said Anna Rigby, client strategist at Via Group, the communications agency that developed the ad, which appeared on page 19 of the July 17, 2006, edition of EE Times.

"The ad has a bit of subtle humor," said Keith Lofstrom, a consultant in Beaverton, Ore., who discovered the coordinates' destination with the help of Google Maps. "There's some clever person who wrote the ad copy."

"There's a lot of TI-envy at ADI," said Will Strauss, president of Forward Concepts Co., a market research firm that ranks ADI as the world's fourth largest DSP supplier, behind TI, Freescale, and Agere Systems. ADI's three-year-old Blackfin family "has caught on very well and is on a nice uptick," Strauss said. "Some of my friends at TI have great respect for it."

Analog Devices considered other coordinates for the ad, which describes Blackfin's use in Maxtrack's vehicle tracking system. "A number were put on the table: Mount Everest; headquarters of ADI, headquarters of Maxtrack," said Robert DeRobertis, director of marketing for ADI's DSP Systems Division. "Someone suggested the headquarters of TI. Sitting back thinking about it, we thought that was as good as any. Especially because we thought no one would notice. No one reads ads anyway any more. The numbers were really meant to catch people's eyes and have them follow up and go to our Web site."

TI did not return calls seeking comment. It may yet have the final word. "I wonder what cleverness TI will put in its next full-page ad?" Lofstrom wondered.