A couple days back, we heard that Texas Instruments was going to move away from the smartphone and tablet markets. Many thought that the company would halt production on its OMAP 5 chipsets as it looked to break into other markets like the automotive, industrial, and robotics industries. Today Texas Instruments clarified Wednesday’s reports, saying that it plans to remain a competitor in the mobile space.

Of course, it’s still going to expand into the markets mentioned above, but it won’t be at the expense of its mobile business it seems. Texas Instruments says that production on OMAP 5 is continuing, telling GSMArena that it is currently sampling its new chipsets and hopes that the first products running OMAP 5 chipsets under the hood will be available in early 2013. The OMAP 5 chip features a Cortex-A15 core, meaning that it should be quite be powerful when it eventually arrives. Make no mistake, OMAP 5 is definitely worthy of your attention.

However, while OMAP 5 might be something to get excited about, it’s probably a good idea for Texas Instruments to try to break into those other markets. Qualcomm has been hitting the mobile processor scene hard, and with Apple and Samsung both developing chips of their own, there is no lack of stiff competition for TI. If things with OMAP 5 don’t work out, TI will probably be very happy that it turned some of its attention to other industries.

For now, though, we can resume waiting for OMAP 5′s arrival with bated breath. If the first products housing OMAP 5 processors will be arriving in early 2013, perhaps we can expect some announcements around the beginning of the year? We’ll be keeping our fingers crossed.