News & Events
Intersil Introduces World's First 50 Mbps ADSL Line Drivers

-- New central office line drivers offer very low harmonic distortion and extended data rates for bandwidth-demanding applications beyond the new ADSL2+ standard

MILPITAS, CA, January 27, 2004 – Intersil Corporation (NASDAQ: ISIL), a world leader in the design and manufacture of high performance analog solutions, today announced the industry’s first monolithic, dual-port DSL line driver for 50 megabit per second (Mbps) Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) applications such as video-on-demand. The EL1526 and EL1529 are the latest additions to Intersil’s Elantec® family of line drivers that offer low power, very small footprint, and extremely good linearity.

The new EL1526 and EL1529 use proprietary circuitry to achieve very low distortion and less than 750 mW per port total power consumption in full-rate ADSL applications. Compared to their predecessor, the EL1528, these next-generation drivers improve total harmonic distortion by more than 10 dB in the 1 MHz to 4 MHz frequency band. This higher fidelity allows DSL systems to more effectively transmit in the higher frequency bands and pack more bits per bin, thereby increasing the downstream data rates well beyond the new 24 Mbps ADSL2+ standard.

“Once again the Elantec Product Group has introduced a leadership line driver for the DSL industry. The EL1526 and EL1529 have provided our DSL chipset partners the ability to achieve the highest data rates in the industry,” said Kaveh Parsi, Intersil’s director of marketing for communications products. “Intersil is committed to developing new products for ADSL and VDSL applications that will further integrate and simplify the line driver section of the xDSL systems and continue to push the limits of this technology towards higher and higher data rates.”

The EL1526 is a device with parameters tuned to perform with Centillium MaximusTM chipsets and the EL1529 is a device with parameters tuned to perform with GlobeSpanVirata chipsets containing G.SpanTM technology. Each of these line driver devices, along with the appropriate system software and chipset, offers the DSLAM designer an upgrade path from ADSL to ADSL2, ADSL2+ and beyond (ADSL2++).

In addition, when the EL1526 or EL1529 are used in ADSL or ADSL2 (8 Mbps to12 Mbps) applications, their increased fidelity allows for operation at lower quiescent currents and thus reduces the power dissipation by 25 mW to 75 mW per port. The EL1526 and EL1529 also integrate protection circuitry that eliminates the need for four external protection diodes per port, reducing the total component count and cost of the system.

Offered in the tiny 24-pin 4x5 mm QFN package at 10 mm2 per port, these dual-port drivers offer the industry’s smallest footprint for DSLAM line card designs. The device is made on Intersil’s high voltage silicon-on-insulator process (SOI) and uses proprietary circuitry to achieve an excellent channel separation of typically -85 dB.

The design of the EL1526 and EL1529, a seventh-generation current mode feedback DSL driver, has been optimized for low power, ease of use, and a reduced number of external components. The combination of these features, along with the extraordinary performance, is enabling very high port count DSL line cards aimed at data, voice, and video on demand service applications.

EL1526 & EL1529 Key Features

• 450 mA output drive capability
• 44.1 Vp-p differential output drive into 100 ohms
• -85 dBc THD at 1 MHz 2 Vp-p
• High slew rate of 500 V/µs
• Bandwidth – 46 MHz
• Current control pins
• Channel separation
  • 80 dB at 500 kHz
  • 75 dB at 1 MHz

Availability and Pricing
The EL1526 and EL1529 have been sampling since late 2003 and are available now; prices are given for 1,000-unit volume. The EL1526 and EL1529 are priced at $4.35 each in QFN24 packages and $4.35 each in HTSSOP20 packages. To learn more about Intersil's Elantec DSL line drivers and receivers, visit: www.intersil.com/dsl About Intersil
Intersil Corporation is a leader in the design and manufacture of high performance analog semiconductors. The company’s products address three of the industry’s fastest growing markets: flat panel displays, optical storage (CD and DVD recordable) and power management. Intersil products include power management devices for battery management, hot-swap and hot-plug controllers, linear regulators, supervisory ICs, switching DC-DC regulators and power MOSFET drivers; optical storage laser diode drivers; DSL line drivers; video and high performance operational amplifiers; data converters; interface ICs; analog switches and multiplexers; crosspoint switches; voice-over-IP devices; and ICs for military, space and rad-hard applications. For more information about Intersil or to find out how to become a member of our winning team, visit the company’s web site and career page at www.intersil.com.

This release may include "forward looking statements" that are subject to risks and uncertainties. For information identifying economic, political, climatic, currency, regulatory, technological, competitive and some other important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward looking statements, see Intersil’s Safe Harbor Forward Looking Statement disclaimer found at http://www.intersil.com/legal.asp, as well as Intersil’s SEC filings as updated from time to time, found at http://www.sec.gov. Elantec is a registered trademark of Intersil Corporation or one of its subsidiaries.
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