News from Harris (They produce the FALCON remember)
I know this is already known news, but with this news release of
Harris they show their support for xDSL, and also their view on
the potential of this market.
Harris Semiconductor Forms New Businesses To Address
Communications and Power Markets
Business Wire - February 03, 1998 11:58
%HARRIS-SEMICONDUCTOR HRS %FLORIDA %OHIO %PENNSYLVANIA %COMPUTERS %ELECTRONICS
%TELECOMMUNICATIONS %COMED %INTERACTIVE %MULTIMEDIA %INTERNET V%BW P%BW
MELBOURNE, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 3, 1998--
-- Follows three years of focus and heavy investments in these
two areas
-- Demonstrates Harris' commitment to these growing markets
Harris Semiconductor announced the formation of two new business organizations today. The Communications Business
and the Power Business have been formed to address the company's increasing drive into these growth markets. Together
with the Core Products Business, formed last year, each business will be a profit and loss center with its top manager
reporting directly to John C. Garrett, president of Harris Semiconductor.
"The formation of these two businesses was the next natural step in our multi-year drive to increase our service to the
growing areas of communications and power," said Garrett. "We've succeeded in applying Harris' expertise to the
development of many new and innovative products for these markets; now it's time to organize around these areas and put
experienced leaders at the helm to develop them as businesses. It is my expectation that each will grow revenues into the $1
billion range within the next few years."
Heading the Communications Business is Ron Van Dell, who joined Harris in 1995 as vice president general manager of the
Worldwide Marketing and Sales organization. Greg Williams - joining Harris this week from Motorola - assumes leadership
of the Power Business as vice president - general manager. The Core Products Business will continue under the leadership
of Scott Moody, who began his career with Harris 18 years ago as a new graduate engineer.
"Ron has shown outstanding leadership in developing a better-focused, better-resourced and better-trained marketing and
sales team to support our efforts on a worldwide basis," Garrett commented. "I'm confident he'll apply those
organizational-building skills to developing an effective business."
"I'm extremely pleased to have Greg Williams joining us because of his 20-plus years of semiconductor and software
experience with Motorola and GE and his proven record of leading successful business units, especially in the power area,"
Garrett continued. "I expect Ron and Greg to build businesses that leverage Harris skills and technologies into innovative,
leadership products that make the Harris name well-known and respected in these two areas."
The Core Products Business was formed last year by combining two Harris product lines: Digital Products and Military &
Space Products. "While our investments focus on Communications and Power, Core Products remains an important
business area and revenue stream for us; likewise, it's important to our many customers that we continue to supply their
product needs," Garrett commented.
"Under Scott's leadership, we've seen some significant improvements over the last year and I expect further improvements
this year," Garrett continued. "That's important, because the profits from this business help fund our initiatives in
Communications and Power." (Editor: See Core Products Business Backgrounder for more detail.)
HARRIS SEMICONDUCTOR COMMUNICATIONS BUSINESS
The Communications Business will be comprised of what were previously three separate product lines: Wireless,
Multimedia and Signal Processing Products. "We have invested very heavily over the last three years in aggressively
developing products to serve key communications segments," Van Dell said. "Communications is now the single focus of our
business, and the structure we're building will ensure that core competencies from each product area will meld to bring
better overall communications products to a rapidly changing and emerging market."
Harris estimates that Communications products account for about a third of total sales now. The company has high growth
goals for these products and is on-track with an aggressive product development program that has already yielded
leadership wireless products that have gained impressive market acceptance. (Editor: See Communications Business
backgrounder for more detail.)
HARRIS SEMICONDUCTOR POWER BUSINESS
The Power Business is comprised of three previously separate product lines: Discrete Power, Intelligent Power and
Suppression. "Harris has made an unparalleled commitment to the future of the fast-growing power industry," Williams said.
"The investments made in our new eight-inch power fab in Mountaintop, PA, in advanced design tools and in process
technologies give Harris tremendous momentum in power product development. We can deliver unique power solutions for
customers, leveraging our technologies in intelligent and discrete power."
Harris estimates that Power products account for over 40 percent of total annual sales. The company plans to double its
market share in the power industry by focusing on development of application-unique products, new technologies, and
capacity increases to stay ahead of market demand. (Editor: See Power Business backgrounder for more detail.)
Harris Corporation's Semiconductor sector manufactures discrete semiconductors and integrated circuits and focuses
research and development efforts on innovative new products for the communications and power control markets. The
company's broad portfolio of products serve many other markets including automotive, consumer electronics,
telecommunications, multimedia, and military and space. The company has sales offices worldwide and manufacturing
facilities in Palm Bay (Florida), Mountaintop (Pennsylvania), Findlay (Ohio), Dundalk (Ireland), and Kuala Lumpur
(Malaysia).
Harris Corporation (NYSE:HRS), with worldwide sales of more than $3.8 billion, is an international communications and
electronics company that provides a wide range of products and services such as wireless and personal communications,
digital television (HDTV), health care information, multi-media communications, automotive electronics, transportation,
business information, defense communications and information, and Lanier office products.
Editor Note: The following materials are available upon request: power backgrounder; communications backgrounder; core
products backgrounder; photographs and biographical information on Williams, Van Dell and Moody.
HARRIS SEMICONDUCTOR COMMUNICATIONS BUSINESS BACKGROUNDER
The Communications Business is headed by Ron Van Dell, vice president and general manager and is comprised of three
product lines: Wireless, Signal Processing and Multimedia Products.
Wireless Products: The PRISM(TM) radio chip set is the flagship of the wireless portfolio. The six-chip set comprises a
high-speed radio that operates in the 2.4GHz band and transmits data at 2 megabits per second for IEEE802.11 standard
applications, and can handle up to 4 Mbps data transmission in non-standard applications. Built around the chip set is a
complete solution that includes reference designs for PRISM-based PC radio cards, manufacturing information, software
and dedicated, highly trained field and factory support personnel. Presently, 22 customer companies have wireless products
on the market using PRISM, and Harris expects another 24 companies to announce PRISM-based products in the next six
months. Furthermore, the company is developing next-generation product families along two paths: one to higher frequency
(5GHz) and higher data rates (11Mbps and 25Mbps); the other toward lower-cost versions for consumer and home LAN
applications. The latter path is expected to yield a three-chip solution priced around $30 within the next year. Ron Van Dell
will act as vice president of this product line until a leader is selected to head up this very important group.
Signal Processing Products: The heart of this product line is the standard products portfolio - encompassing analog, mixed
signal and hard-wired digital signal processing products. The portfolio offers a very broad range of ADC and DAC devices
and has been an area of significant growth, especially in sales garnered following the company's rapid expansion of its
converter products portfolio.
Harris has been a high volume, worldwide supplier of telecom ICs for many years. The telecom portfolio includes subscriber
line interface circuits (SLICs), codecs, and ASICs. In the xDSL arena, Harris' new analog front end was just selected by
PairGain Technologies for use in their discrete multi-tone (DMT) ADSL modem. In addition, Harris is working on a VDSL
chip set through an agreement with Orckit Communications, Ltd. Mick Denham is vice president of the Signal Processing
Products product line.
Multimedia Products: Harris has an expanding portfolio of encoders, decoders, and other audio/video processing products
that address the growing PC Multimedia trend. Harris also has important, systems-level expertise with PC-based
videoconferencing and intends to focus efforts on quickly introducing many new standard products aimed at surrounding and
enhancing the multimedia capabilities of PCs, whether from MMX-type CPU chips or audio and video add-in cards. This
product line is headed by Geoff Phillips, vice president of Multimedia Products.
HARRIS SEMICONDUCTOR POWER BUSINESS BACKGROUNDER
Harris Semiconductor's Power Business is headed by Greg Williams, vice president and general manager. The business has
two product lines: Discrete Power Products and Intelligent Power Products.
Discrete Power Products: Harris holds many discrete power patents and has one of the broadest portfolios products in the
industry today. Products include power transistors such as metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs),
600- and 1200-volt insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs), MOS controlled thyristors (MCTs), and high speed
rectifiers. Its new UltraFET line of MOSFETs offers the lowest on-resistance per unit area of silicon in the power transistor
business today. For transient voltage suppression, Harris offers a broad family of devices including metal oxide varistors
(MOVs), multilayer varistors (MLs), surgectors, and gas discharge tubes (GDTs). Steve Ahrens is vice president of the
Discrete Power Product line.
Intelligent Power Products: Harris provides integrated and non-integrated intelligent power solutions that enable lower cost
and quicker time to market. Harris' Intelligent Power portfolio includes products for motor control, power interface, power
supply and voltage conversion, class D audio, power processing, and automotive. Harris offers a broad line of PWM
controllers, DC-DC converters and hot plug ICs for PCI file server applications. The company offers several evaluation
boards for it DC-DC converters as well as complete reference designs for high-efficiency Class D audio amplification. This
product line is headed by George Gidzinski, vice president of Intelligent Power Products.
HARRIS SEMICONDUCTOR CORE PRODUCTS BUSINESS BACKGROUNDER
Harris' Core Products Business is headed by Vice President F. Scott Moody and is comprised of two product lines: Digital
and Military & Space.
The Digital product line's portfolio includes 6805 microcontrollers and peripherals, standard family logic, second-source
Intel peripherals and customer-specific ICs. Harris has a long heritage with many of these products and continues to make
investments in new product development. For example, last year Harris added a broad portfolio of FCT and LPT products
to its existing CD4000, HC/HCT and FC/FCT families. In addition, Harris continues to add to its portfolio of
second-source Motorola 6805 microcontrollers and peripherals including new versions of the C8, C16, P1 and P4.
Harris' Military & Space product line offers a very broad portfolio of military grade and radiation-hardened discrete
semiconductors and integrated circuits. Harris is the world's largest supplier of military and radiation-hardened products.
With significant reductions in DoD spending for such products over the last several years, the company has managed an
orderly downsizing of its DoD operations while offsetting some of the decline with sales growth in the commercial space
market. The company expects to see continued growth in commercial space over the next several years. Harris continues to
develop new products to serve CMOS microprocessors, microcontrollers and peripherals, digital logic, and radiation
hardened ICs and discretes for military and space applications. Harris invented CMOS logic and is the world's number one
supplier of military ICs and radiation hardened circuits for space applications.
NOTE TO EDITORS: There is an "at" symbol following "jallen02"
and "bdietz" in the e-mail addresses below. This symbol may not
appear properly in some systems.
CONTACT: Harris Semiconductor
John Allen, 407/729-4928
jallen02@harris.com
Brent Dietz, 407/729-5973
bdietz@harris.com |
