Intersil and Primarion in powerful alliance

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Nov 13, 2001

Intersil has entered a strategic investment and technology alliance with advanced power and communications IC company Primarion of Tempe, Arizona.

Intersil has entered a strategic investment and technology alliance with advanced power and communications IC company Primarion of Tempe, Arizona.

The alliance will codevelop new digital power management solutions for high-end desktop PCs, servers and notebooks as well as high-speed power switching solutions to meet the requirements of advanced Intel and AMD microprocessors.

As part of the alliance, Intersil will make an equity investment in Primarion, license key aspects of Primarion's new power architecture, and codevelop next-generation digital controller and gigahertz power-regulation ICs for server, desktop and mobile applications operating at several gigahertz.

Primarion and Intersil plan to develop a new power architecture for computing systems that includes four key new elements: gigahertz regulation technology from Primarion, megahertz and digital control technologies codeveloped by Intersil and Primarion and a new communications bus all enabling a high performance power architecture for computers for the first time.

The companies are already working with industry leaders to ensure optimal design for tomorrow's multi-gigahertz Internet computing environments.

"The combination of Intersil and Primarion's engineering and technical proficiencies coupled with our global leadership in PC/server power management and channels to market will help accelerate the development of multi-gigahertz power management solutions", said Rick Furtney, vice president and general manager of Intersil's Analogue Business Unit.

"Primarion understands high-performance power delivery and the dynamic power demands of next generation microprocessors and our alliance with Primarion will help maintain Intersil's global leadership in power management for advanced PC and server customers which already includes the industry leading Endura power management portfolio".

"Intersil's strategic investment in Primarion's power architecture will help Primarion meet the industry to meet the ever-growing demands of today's multi-gigahertz computing applications for information-quality power - enabling new Internet and computing applications we can only dream of today", said Daniel Clarke, president and CEO of Primarion.