News & Events
Intersil Powers Gigabyte's New VRM10- and Hammer-Based Motherboards

-- Intersil's Endura power solutions offer best space, performance and cost

MILPITAS, CA, April 15, 2003 – Intersil Corporation (NASDAQ: ISIL), a world leader in the design and manufacture of high performance analog and wireless networking solutions, today announced that Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd., one of the world’s leading motherboard manufacturers, has once again chosen Intersil’s highly efficient Endura™ power solutions for their new VRM10- and Hammer-based motherboards. Intersil provides the most compact, highest performing and lowest cost power solutions for CPUs, chip sets, graphics and DDR memory.

“We are very pleased that Gigabyte has again selected Intersil’s Endura power solutions to provide critical power control for their motherboards,” said Rick Furtney, vice president and general manager of Intersil’s High Performance Analog Product Group. “Gigabyte continues their leadership position in motherboard innovation with the new Intel® Pentium® 4 VRM10- and AMD™ Hammer-based motherboards and are well known for their award-winning motherboards and graphics cards.”

“Intersil continues to support our efforts to be the first to market with the most innovative, highest performing and cost-competitive motherboards,” said Richard Ma, president of Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. “Intersil’s power solutions are the most advanced in the industry and offer us the precision performance and cost structure that we need to continue to produce award-winning platforms.”

Gigabyte Technology's total motherboard production capacity is approximately 1.3 million units per month. One out of every ten computers in the world now uses a Gigabyte motherboard. Gigabyte is ranked among Taiwan’s top four motherboard manufacturers, which supply most of the world’s motherboards. In addition to the new Hammer and VR10 platforms, Intersil continues to power previous-generation Athlon and VR9.X platforms for Gigabyte.

Intersil’s Power Solutions for the New VR10-Based Platforms
Intersil’s new Endura™ precision VR10-platform controllers include the ISL6556A, ISL6556B and ISL6561 ICs that provide core voltage regulation by driving 2 to 4 synchronous-rectified buck channels in parallel. All devices provide the industry’s best +/- 0.5% system accuracy over life, load, line and temperature. This extremely tight tolerance allows better loadline adherence than competitive solutions and also results in fewer output capacitors, lower cost, reduced power dissipation, and a smaller implementation area. Dynamic VID™ technology allows seamless on-the-fly 6-bit VID changes. The offset pin allows accurate voltage offset settings that are independent of VID settings. A unity gain, differential amplifier is provided for remote voltage sensing. Any potential difference between remote and local grounds is virtually eliminated using the remote-sensing amplifier.

Both the ISL6556A and ISL6556B use MOSFET RDS(ON) current sensing to measure current in each phase and also to generate droop current. RDS(ON) current sensing has been demonstrated to provide the most accurate loadline adherence. Accuracy of droop is ensured with the use of a Positive Temperature Coefficient (PTC) compensation circuit that is used to nullify the effect of RDS(ON) temperature sensitivity. The ISL6556A employs an external NTC circuit while the ISL6556B has a PTC thermistor on-chip, saving part cost and board space without sacrificing performance. A threshold-sensitive enable input is available to accurately coordinate the start up of the ISL6556A with any other voltage rail. Package options include the 28-lead SOIC and the space-saving 32-pad 5 X 5 mm Quad Flat No-lead (QFN) packages.

The ISL6561 IC is the world’s first PWM controller to offer designers a choice of either lower MOSFET RDS(ON) or inductor DCR (DC Resistance) current-sensing topologies. This advanced controller is supplied in the space-saving and thermally efficient 40-pad 6 X 6 mm QFN package. The accuracy of the RDS(ON) current-sensing method is enhanced by the ISL6561’s integrated temperature compensation function. For even greater accuracy, an external thermistor may be used near the lower MOSFET in place of the integrated element. Droop accuracy, phase current balance and over-current protection can be affected by temperature related changes in RDS(ON) or DCR.

The ISL6561 has a built-in shunt regulator to allow 12-V-only bias using a small external limiting resistor. The ISL6561 provides improved current balance between phases and immunity to layout due to its advanced differential current sensing feature.

The ISL6556A, ISL6556B and ISL6561 ICs interface with Intersil’s MOSFET driver ICs, such as the HIP6601B, HIP6602B, HIP6604B, or ISL6605, to create a compact, high-performance VR10.X compliant and cost-effective power solution. These drivers also come in space-saving QFN packages. Reference designs and evaluation platforms are available.

Intersil’s Endura ISL6520A provides DDR memory core voltage regulation. The ISL6520A is a single-phase, single-output, synchronous PWM buck controller that powers the DDR memory core or termination and offers small size and high efficiency over the industrial temperature range. The controller comes in a choice of 8-pin SOIC or 16-pad 4 X 4 QFN packages and includes single-supply operation, digital soft start, and low-cost upper MOSFET RDS(ON) sensing.

Intersil’s Endura Power Solution for the New AMD Opteron™ and AMD Athlon™ Processors
The Intersil Endura solution to power AMD’s Hammer technology processors is based on the new ISL6569 and ISL6559, the industry’s first dedicated two-phase, and two- to four-phase PWM controllers optimized to power the new Athlon and Opteron processors. These robust controllers interface with Intersil’s MOSFET drivers, which includes the single-channel HIP6601B, HIP6603B, HIP6604B, ISL6605, and dual-channel HIP6602B. The ISL6569 and ISL6559 are offered in 24-lead and 28-lead SOIC packages respectively. They also come in a 32-pad 5 x 5 mm QFN package which reduces the controller footprint area by as much as 87%, while improving the dc/dc converter thermal performance. The ISL6569 and ISL6559 are loaded with features that provide protection, precision, high converter efficiency, and the lowest bill-of-materials cost.

Notable features of the ISL6559 include: precise differential remote output voltage sensing, Dynamic VID technology for “on-the-fly” voltage changes, 5- or 12-V supply operation, 1% accuracy, digital soft start, 4 MHz output voltage ripple frequency, programmable droop voltage, threshold-sensitive enable input, and a pin-adjustable reference offset. MOSFET RDS(ON) is used for current sensing to save space and component costs.

The ISL6559, ISL6559EVAL1, and ISL6559EVAL2 evaluation platforms and a complete reference design are available to assist engineers with solution evaluation and design-in. The ISL6559EVAL1 is a VRM-style evaluation module, and the ISL6559EVAL2 is an embedded evaluation board. Both are 100% compliant to the new AMD Opteron and Athlon power specifications.

To learn more about this and other Endura power management products, visit the Intersil Power Management Web site at: http://www.intersil.com/design/powermanagement/index.asp

About Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
Founded in 1986 and based in Taiwan, Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. has become a world leader in PC and server motherboard manufacturing. Gigabyte supplies the world’s leading desktop, notebook and server manufacturers with high-performance high-value motherboards. The company’s rapid growth has been frequently recognized with many honors and awards. Gigabyte is well known for: a high product performance to price ratio, rapid and flexible supply capability, high standards of continuous quality improvement, and prompt, long-lasting and extensive customer service. The company has extensive research and development and manufacturing resources that are leveraged to expand products into other areas of information technology while maintaining a leadership position in the PC and server arenas. To learn more about Gigabyte and their products, visit their Web site at: http://www.giga-byte.com. About Intersil
Intersil Corporation is a global semiconductor leader in the design and manufacture of high performance analog and wireless networking solutions. Intersil’s product portfolios address four fast growing markets – flat panel displays, optical storage (CD and DVD recordable), power management and wireless networking. Intersil brings added customer value in providing complete silicon, software and reference design solutions to new products that enhance the computing experience for people wherever they live, work or travel. 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. Endura and Dynamic VID are trademarks of Intersil Americas Inc.AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, AMD Opteron, AMD Athlon and combinations thereof, are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.Intel and Pentium are registered trademarks of Intel Corporation.All other trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.