Editors Recognize Patent-Pending Design and Industry-Leading Performance of Intersil’s ISL22317 Digitally Controlled Potentiometer

MILPITAS, CA — January 6, 2010 — Intersil Corporation (NASDAQ Global Select: ISIL), a leader in the design and manufacture of analog and mixed-signal semiconductors, today announced that editors of Electronic Products Magazine have selected the ISL22317 as one of its “Products of the Year” for 2009.  

The editors of Electronic Products—a leading trade publication for electronic design engineers— evaluated thousands of products launched in 2009. The winning products are selected on the basis of innovative design, significant advancement in technology or application and substantial achievement in price and performance. Intersil’s ISL22317 took top honors in the “Analog and Mixed Signal” division of the annual competition.

Winning Technical Features and Benefits
The ISL22317 is the industry’s first low-voltage DCP with < 1 percent typical resistor tolerance.  The ultra-low tolerance allows the ISL22317 to be used as a true variable resistor, enabling users to set standard and non-standard resistor values for open-loop applications.

The ISL22317 is an excellent choice for designs that require specific current and resistor values such as test and measurement circuits, medical devices, backlight controls, or adjusting specific resistances in analog circuits.  The patent-pending architecture of the ISL22317 allows it to track an external resistor within 10ppm/degree C, improving overall system accuracy for temperatures up to 125 degrees C.  

The ISL22317 reduces programming time and development costs by letting users select accurate pre-determined resistor values, and use calculated resistor values in schematics. In addition, it allows one to use the known value of one system to calibrate other systems. The device employs an easy-to-use I2C interface to program accurate resistor settings >1 million times in the integrated EEPROM memory.

The ISL22317 also features a zero-compensated wiper resistance in rheostat mode.  By negating wiper resistance, overall accuracy is improved, especially at the low tap positions where the ratio of wiper resistance to actual resistance is much higher.  This enables users to do schematic calculations based on an actual 1 percent value, instead of competitive solutions that have >±20 percent tolerance of the resistor string in addition to wiper resistance error.

The 2009 Product of the Year Awards were announced in the January 2010 issue of Electronic Products with a cover feature and a brief description of Intersil's ISL22317. Intersil's winning product appears on the Electronic Products’ website at:

http://www2.electronicproducts.com/DCP_enables_performance_breakthroughs_in_medical_apps_--_Intersil-article-poycn01_jan2010-html.aspx. 

2009 marks the 34th annual Electronic Products’  “Product of the Year” Awards, which began recognizing the best products in the industry in 1977.

For more information, please visit: http://www.intersil.com/products/deviceinfo.asp?pn=ISL22317

To view a high-resolution downloadable photo, please visit Intersil’s photo room at: http://www.intersil.com/pressroom/photoarchives.asp. 

About Intersil
Intersil Corporation is a leader in the design and manufacture of high-performance analog and mixed signal semiconductors. The Company's products address some of the industry's fastest growing markets, such as, flat panel displays, cell phones, other handheld systems, and notebooks. Intersil’s product families address power management functions and analog signal processing functions. Intersil products include ICs for battery management, hot-plug controllers, linear regulators, power sequencers, supervisory ICs, bridge drivers, PWM controllers, switching DC/DC regulators, Zilker Labs Digital Power ICs and power MOSFET drivers; optical storage laser diode drivers; DSL line drivers; D2Audio products; video and high-performance operational amplifiers; high-speed data converters; interface ICs; analog switches and multiplexers; crosspoint switches; voice-over-IP devices; and ICs for military, space and radiation-hardened 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.