News & Events
Intersil’s PRISM II Enables Z-Com’s New Compact Flash Wireless LAN Card

— LANEscape™ XI-800 is world’s first IEEE 802.11b WLAN card in Compact Flash® form factor

IRVINE, CA, April 5, 2000 – Intersil Corporation (NASDAQ: ISIL), the world’s leading
provider of silicon technology for Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs), today announced that Z-Com, Inc., has integrated the PRISM® II chip set into the world’s first IEEE 802.11b-compliant Compact Flash WLAN card that enables 11 megabits-per-second (Mbps) wireless networking in Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) and other compact electronic devices.

"Z-Com’s new LANEscape XI-800 Compact Flash (CF) WLAN card has propelled the use of PDAs and other small portable devices to new levels of potential use," said Larry Ciaccia, vice president and general manager of PRISM Wireless Products at Intersil. "This exciting application is another validation of the growing adoption of PRISM and 802.11b in a multitude of devices and form factors enabling high speed mobile connectivity."

The new PRISM-based CF card supports various PDA and portable platforms and is available with Windows CE 3.0 drivers. The small CF form factor provides portable users complete mobility while maintaining connectivity to a wired network via an access point. The CF card operates in the 2.4 GHz Industrial Scientific and Medical (ISM) band at the IEEE 802.11b-compliant high-data-rate speed of 11 Mbps and is downward compatible with older 5.5, 2 and 1 Mbps systems.

"Intersil’s PRISM chip sets provide the most powerful wireless networking solutions available on the market today for manufacturing IEEE 802.11b wireless products," said Don Chu, executive vice president at Z-Com. "PRISM II delivers the affordability, performance and quality that has enabled Z-Com to quickly develop and bring our revolutionary new CF WLAN card to market."

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 chip sets 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 802.11-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, Linksys, Nokia, Nortel, Samsung, Scientific-Atlanta, Siemens, SOHOware, Sony, SpectraLink, Symbol Technologies, and Zoom.

About Z-Com

Z-Com Inc., established in 1995, develops, manufactures, and markets a series of high-performance, local/wide area wireless data products and solutions for wireless Internet access and various mobile data applications. Z-Com's headquarters and manufacturing facilities are located in Science-Based Industrial Park of Hsinchu, Taiwan with a wholly-owned sales subsidiary in Los Angeles, CA. Together with Taiwan's strength in product engineering and competitive manufacturing, Z-Com has formed a valuable network of resources with an expertise in communication system engineering, radio technology, protocol engineering, networking technologies, and manufacturing capabilities among others.

About Intersil

Intersil is a leading supplier of semiconductors, reference designs and software for wireless access and communications analog 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 information relating to certain projections and business trends concerning the WLAN market that are forward looking statements as defined in the in Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 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 WLAN market include, but are not limited to: the rate at which consumers adopt small handheld Internet appliances; 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 Americas Inc.

PRISM/work and PRISM/home are trademarks of Intersil Americas Inc.

LANEscape is a trademark of Z-Com, Inc.

Wi-Fi is a trademark of the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance.

All other trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.