News & Events
Intersil Achieves Market Milestone: Announces One-Millionth PRISM® II WLAN Chip Set Shipment
Increased shipments and growing demand evidence of explosive growth in home and enterprise wireless LAN market spaces
IRVINE, Calif., July 21, 2000 — Intersil (NASDAQ: ISIL), the world’s leading provider of silicon technology for Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs), announced today it has shipped its one-millionth PRISM® II WLAN Chip Set since the first production shipments of the high performance silicon solution last October. New manufacturing capacities are being brought on-line to support shipment capability of two million PRISM II chip sets in Q3 and four million in Q4.
This new capacity is necessary to support rapidly growing demand from customers serving the home and enterprise market segments. New home gateways that combine high-speed DSL or cable modem connections with wireless networking technology are being developed and deployed to serve as a hub for the many wireless appliances that will be used in homes. On the enterprise side, corporate MIS managers have discovered the value of wireless umbrellas laid over existing wired-Ethernet networks to provide network services to a population of mobile workers that is at 20 percent and growing.
"We’re committed to the vision of ‘Internet Anywhere’ and we support the build-out of high-data-rate wireless networks in corporate offices, small businesses, homes, and public structures such as hotels and airports," said Larry Ciaccia, vice president and general manager of PRISM Wireless Products. "Our mission is to develop the most advanced, highest performance, lowest power and most tightly integrated circuits that are optimized for high-data-rate wireless applications. We’re further committed to developing hardware, firmware, software and design tools that allow our customers to get technically-advanced, full-featured and globally-viable systems to market in the shortest amount of time."
The company cites several factors driving increased sales of WLAN systems: lower prices driven by high-performance, low-cost chip set technology; a global standard for delivering wired Ethernet-equivalent data rates in the home or office; and the entry of computer, networking and telecommunications industry giants into the market. Intersil also expects that wireless networking capability will be widely adopted into next-generation, handheld information appliances for homes and offices which will deliver mobile Internet access; these devices will include "Web Pads," Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and ultra-light mobile PCs.
Intersil’s PRISM Wireless Product sales grew 238% from the same quarter in 1999 and were up 51% from the previous quarter to $21.6 million. Further demonstrating Intersil’s industry leading position in high-data-rate wireless networks, PRISM orders soared 651% over the same quarter last year.
PRISM chips have won more than 100 design-ins, with a customer list that includes industry heavyweights such as Alcatel, Cisco Systems, Compaq, Nokia, Siemens, 3Com, Dell, Samsung and Nortel Networks.
Intersil’s latest offering, PRISM 2.5, consists of only four ICs – three RF-IF ICs and one in the digital portion – and delivers 10BaseT Ethernet-equivalent data rates of 11Mbps. To further drive the market, Intersil plans to continually introduce new generations of PRISM chip sets in the 2.4 GHz band, as well as developing next-generation 5 GHz, 54 megabits-per-second solutions expected to be available in early 2001.
Adoption of PRISM WLAN Technology
Since introducing the PRISM WLAN chip set in 1996, over fifty companies have incorporated PRISM chips in more than 100 product designs. In a May 2000 report, the Cahners In-Stat Group called Intersil "the dominant force in the WLAN chip set marketplace with their PRISM chipsets holding the majority of market share." PRISM technology is designed to comply with the IEEE’s 802.11b global standard, and Intersil is a founding sponsor of the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance (WECA), whose Wi-Fi™ brand is a mark of compatibility for 802.11b-based systems. PRISM chips are used in WLAN systems from industry-leading companies including Alcatel, Cisco, Nokia, Siemens, Compaq, 3Com, Dell, Nortel, Samsung, SpectraLink, Symbol Technologies and Zoom.
About Intersil
Irvine, California-based Intersil uses its semiconductor expertise to enable highly integrated voice, data and video communications. Intersil's integrated communications portfolio includes PRISM® Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) chip sets that enable mobile connectivity products for the home and office; analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits for broadband access to wireless and wired Wide Area Networks (WANs); and power management products that enable 24x7 reliability in network servers, next generation PCs and information appliances. For more information about Intersil, visit the company's Internet homepage at www.intersil.com.
This press release contains information relating to the growing demand for wireless products that are forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements are based upon management’s current expectations, estimates, beliefs, assumptions, and projections about our business and our industry. Words such as "anticipates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "believes," "seeks," "estimates," "may," "will" and variations of these words or similar expressions are intended to identify forward looking statements. In addition, any statements that refer to expectations, projections or other characterizations of future events or circumstances, including any underlying assumptions, are forward looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Therefore, our actual results could differ materially and adversely from those expressed in the forward looking statements as a result of various risk factors. Important risk factors that may cause such material differences for Intersil in connection with the wireless market include, but are not limited to, the rate at which our present and future customers and end-users adopt Intersil’s wireless technologies and products; the timing, rescheduling or cancellation of significant customer orders; the loss of a key customer; the qualification, availability and pricing of competing products and technologies and the resulting effects on sales and pricing of our products; silicon wafer pricing and the availability of foundry and assembly capacity and raw materials; intellectual property disputes; as well as other risk factors detailed from time to time in Intersil’s filings with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission. These forward-looking statements are made only as of the date of this press release and Intersil undertakes no obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements.
PRISM is a registered trademark of Intersil Corporation.
