News & Events
Intersil’s Newest PRISM WLAN Chipset Now Available for High Performance, High Speed Wireless Networking

— Half the chips, half the power, 5X the speed
— Delivers significant performance gains while reducing wireless system cost

NEW ORLEANS, LA, Wireless Symposium/PCS ’99, September 22, 1999 – Intersil Corporation, the world’s leading developer of silicon technology for Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs), today announced that its PRISM II WLAN Chip Set is now in full production and available for sampling. PRISM II is the world’s most complete, most highly integrated 11 megabit-per-second (Mbps) "Antenna-to-Computer" solution for WLANs.

PRISM II is completely re-engineered from the original award-winning PRISM chip set, yielding a more highly integrated solution that delivers better performance, 50 percent lower power consumption and a 35 percent reduction in total bill-of-materials cost for a WLAN card. The new PRISM II set includes an Intersil Medium Access Control (MAC) chip, a highly advanced IC that interfaces between the radio portion (called the physical layer, or PHY) and the host computer. Many of PRISM II’s performance and feature-set improvements come from new advanced IC design and the use of silicon germanium (SiGe) process technology for three of the four new chips in the PHY.

"PRISM II gives system integrators a jump start in delivering high data rate wireless systems for even cost-sensitive small office, home networking and consumer markets," said Chris Henningsen, vice president of Marketing and co-leader of Intersil’s PRISM Wireless Products business. "This enables wireless Ethernet performance in the Enterprise and Small Office-Home Office markets while making it possible to hit retail price points that will stimulate wide market adoption of many new types of wireless Internet appliances for the home."

As with the previous PRISM chip set, Intersil offers extensive design support tools – a complete PRISM II reference design, hardware evaluation kit, software drivers, a complete high rate 802.11 MAC firmware set and evaluation boards for each individual IC.

The most important advances in the PRISM II WLAN solution are:

Performance
The original PRISM chip set operated at 1 and 2 Mbps for IEEE802.11 standard operation. PRISM II has a top data rate of 11Mbps, and will comply to the new IEEE802.11 High Rate standard, now awaiting final approval. Other features built into the PRISM II chip set provide advanced performance features, one being an increase in delay spread (at the same data rate), which can significantly increase range. PRISM II can also downshift to slower data rates (5.5, 2, or 1Mbps) when necessary for maintaining link integrity or when operating with legacy 802.11-compliant 1 or 2 Mbps systems.

Integration
The PRISM I-based design required eight ICs to implement the PHY; only four are required in PRISM II-based systems. Those four chips also integrate other functions that were previously handled by separate components on the board. With fewer board components, PRISM II-based radio cards will be less costly to manufacture and be more reliable because the critical functions are integrated into a set of matched ICs. Materials and manufacturing costs of PRISM II-based systems will be reduced by about 35 percent, allowing OEMs to reduce retail prices, necessary for wider adoption of wireless networking.

Power Consumption
Three of the chips in the PRISM II set are manufactured using SiGe technology that provides high RF performance, high integration and with much lower power consumption. In fact, Intersil estimates that a PRISM II-based card will use about half the power as compared to cards based on the original PRISM chipset. This is particularly important as wireless capability is deployed in portable appliances that must operate on batteries.

The PRISM II chip set’s five ICs implement a complete data communications radio operating in the 2.4 GHz Industrial Scientific and Medical (ISM) band at speeds up to 11Mbps. From the antenna, the four chips in the PHY layer include: the Power Amplifier and Detector (HFA3983), the RF-to-IF Converter (HFA3683), the I/Q Modulator/Demodulator and Synthesizer (HFA3783), and a Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum Baseband Processor (HFA3861). The HFA3841 comprises the Medium Access Control (MAC) layer and is the interface between the physical layer and the host computer, becoming the final link in a complete end-to-end, "Antenna-to-Computer™" chip set solution

Pricing and Availability:
PRISM II chipset pricing in 100K quantities is $38.39. The set includes: the HFA3983 Power Amplifier/Detector; HFA3683 RF-to-IF Converter/Synthesizer; HFA3783 I/Q Modulator/Demodulator and Synthesizer; HFA3861A DSSS Baseband Processor; and the HFA3841 MAC.

Adoption of PRISM Technology
Since the introduction of the PRISM WLAN chip set in 1996, more than forty companies have incorporated PRISM chips in more than 100 product designs. PRISM technology is designed to comply with the IEEE’s 802.11 global standard and Intersil plans to introduce better performing, more highly integrated chip set solutions roughly every nine months. PRISM chips are used in WLAN systems from industry leading companies including Compaq, Nokia, Siemens, 3Com, Nortel, Samsung, Zoom Telephonics, Aironet, and SpectraLink.

About Intersil Corporation
Intersil Corporation uses analog, mixed-signal, power and radiation-hardening technologies to develop advanced integrated circuits and discrete semiconductors for high-growth segments of the communications, power and space/defense markets. Intersil Corporation employs 5,800 worldwide and utilizes the rich intellectual property heritage from Harris, GE Solid State and RCA. The company’s Web site is located at http://www.intersil.com.

This press release contains forward-looking statements made in reliance upon the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements reflect management's current assumptions and estimates of future performance and economic conditions. Specific risks include worldwide demand and product pricing for integrated circuits, and reductions in the U.S. and worldwide defense and space budgets. In addition, Intersil cautions investors that any forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results and future trends and events to differ materially from those matters expressed in or implied by such forward-looking statements.

PRISM is a registered trademark and "Antenna-to-Computer" is a trademark of Intersil Corporation