News & Events
Intersil Offers PRISM® Reference Design for Home Wireless Gateways and Small Office Access Points
Complete solution for small, low-cost, high-performance wireless hubs
IRVINE, CA, November 10, 2000 — Intersil Corporation (NASDAQ: ISIL), the world’s leading provider of silicon technology for Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs), announced today the availability of an innovative new reference design that is ideal for the manufacturing of both home wireless gateways and Access Points in small offices. This groundbreaking reference design is the first product offering from Intersil’s new PRISM/home™ product line.
The reference design integrates all electronic components on a single board that measures approximately 2-1/2 x 3-3/4 inches. At the heart of the design are Intersil’s PRISM®II chips, including a powerful new ARM®-based Access Point Controller engine that performs the IEEE 802.11 Medium Access Controller (MAC), wired Ethernet MAC and gateway control functions. This advanced chip eliminates the need for a separate gateway host microprocessor and simplifies the overall design.
"This single-board reference design requires no additional add-in cards and its small size, high performance and low cost make it ideal as a wireless gateway to the Internet in homes or to the LAN in offices, " said Larry Ciaccia, vice president and general manager of PRISM Wireless Products at Intersil. "It’s a complete solution that enables our customers to quickly build and market affordable, compact and easy-to-install wireless gateways for the home and office. "
The PRISM/home™ AP Reference Design delivers an 11 megabit-per-second (Mbps) data rate and is fully compliant with the IEEE 802.11b standard and will be available with Wi-Fi™ certification from the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance (WECA) to ensure multi-vendor interoperability.
"Consumers around the world, particularly in places such as Japan, are increasingly accessing the Internet through residential gateways with broadband cable, ISDN or DSL connections, " added Ciaccia. "Our new reference design will make it significantly easier for OEMs to quickly satisfy this demand with wireless-capable gateway products that offer the freedom to work and play — with full broadband services — anywhere in the home or office. "
The PRISM/home™ AP Reference Design comes with all manufacturing data and necessary software. The contents include system schematics, board layout, Gerber files, bill-of-materials lists, software, firmware and documentation. For customers who use the reference design with minimum changes, system design effort and time-to-market can be reduced by up to 80 percent.
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, 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 802.11 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/work™ and PRISM/home™ products are used in WLAN systems from industry-leading companies including Alcatel, Cisco, Compaq, 3Com, Dell, D-Link, Nokia, Nortel, Samsung, Siemens, SpectraLink, Symbol Technologies and Zoom.
About Intersil
Intersil is a leading supplier of semiconductors, reference designs and software for wireless access and communications markets. Intersil applies analog, mixed-signal and radio frequency (RF) expertise to products that enable wireless access to broadband media; provide reliable power management for PCs, files servers and portable information appliances; and convert analog and digital signals in cellular and Internet infrastructure. For more information about Intersil, visit the company's Internet homepage at www.intersil.com.
This press release contains statements relating to certain projections and business trends concerning the home and enterprise WLAN markets 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 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. Furthermore, any forward-looking statements and projections made by others in this press release are not adopted by Intersil Holding Corporation ("Intersil") and Intersil is not responsible for the forward-looking statements and projections of others. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and 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 any 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 home and enterpriseWLAN markets 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 ("SEC") which you may obtain for free at the SEC’s website www.sec.gov. 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.
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PRISM is a registered trademark of Intersil Corporation.
PRISM/home and PRISM/work are trademarks of Intersil Corporation.
Wi-Fi is a trademark of the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance.
ARM is a registered trademark of ARM, Ltd.
All other trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.
