Infineon Launches Ultra-Low Power ADSL2+ Chipset to Increase Efficiency: Industry`s First Class D-based Design

Cuts Power Consumption and Footprint by One Third

Infineon Technologies AG (FSE/NYSE: IFX), a leading supplier of broadband access semiconductor solutions, today launched GEMINAX PRO, the industry’s highest-integration and lowest-power ADSL2+ chipset. Consisting of a 16-channel ADSL2+ Digital Front End (DFE) and a 4-channel Analog Front End (AFE), with integrated low-power Class D line drivers, the GEMINAX PRO chipset reduces power dissipation, footprint and overall system costs by up to 30 percent, in comparison to other chipsets currently available. Additionally, Remote Units (RUs) – typically constrained by power, area and battery back-up requirements – which incorporate the new Infineon chipset will also benefit from significant operational cost savings. Also, in environments where power dissipation values are restricted by standards, for example, the North American Network Equipment Building System (NEBS) standard, operators can now exploit real estate in the central office more efficiently.

High power dissipation of currently available ADSL2+ line drivers limits the integration to two channels per device. Infineon’s revolutionary switched-mode (“Class D”) line driver technology reduces the power dissipation of the line driver by 50 percent to less than 350 milliWatts per channel, allowing the integration of four line drivers and AFE channels into a single device. In contrast to ordinary linear devices available on the market, Class D devices use Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) technology to generate a higher efficiency analog signal that dramatically reduces power dissipation in the output stage. Class D amplifiers, widely used in audio applications, are restricted to low frequency range of few kiloHertz. On the other hand, ADSL2+ requires an operating bandwidth of 2.2 MHz. A multitude of technological innovations introduced by Infineon have made it possible to overcome this challenge without sacrificing performance.

“By listening to our customers, we know that the key to further system cost reduction is deploying more ports per Central Office Unit. Infineon’s GEMINAX PRO is the industry’s first ADSL2+ chipset with Class D technology that has been designed to overcome both limiting factors, footprint and power consumption, at the same time,” said Christian Wolff, Vice President Communications Business Group and General Manager Wireline Access Business Unit at Infineon. “Conventional solutions have almost exhausted their innovation potential. The new Class D approach allows us to push power consumption and integration density to the next level.”

According to the latest DSL Forum reports, Digital Subscriber Lines (DSL) over existing copper infrastructure dominate the broadband access market with a share of around 65 percent. Of these approximately 100 million lines, ADSL and ADSL2+ systems comprise over 90 percent. ADSL2+ is backwards compatible to ADSL and thus enables a smooth transition to next-generation DSL networks. Existing ADSL Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) deployed at homes today can seamlessly connect to upgraded ADSL2+ Central Office (CO) systems using ADSL mode.

“Infineon increased its market share in the highly competitive ADSL infrastructure market by six points during 2004, closing the year at 14 percent,” said Steve Rago, Principal Analyst at iSuppli. “With the announcement of GEMINAX PRO, Infineon should be in a good position to continue its momentum in what we forecast to be a very competitive 2005. A market where PTTs and ILECs worldwide are committed to providing video services and therefore need reliable ADSL 2 + technology.“

iSuppli forecasts that 50 million ADSL chip sets will ship during 2005 with the majority of these being ADSL 2 +. In 2006, iSuppli expects demand will increase by 14 percent and ADSL 2 + will be the technology of choice for the world’s service providers.

About Infineon’s GEMINAX PRO Chipset

GEMINAX PRO consists of a 16-channel ADSL2+ Digital Front End (DFE), the GEMINAX-D16 PRO, and a 4-channel Analog Front End (AFE) with 4 integrated low-power Class D line drivers, dubbed GEMINAX-AL4 PRO. A GEMINAX PRO enabled system only requires five devices to provide 16 full-rate ADSL2+ channels. As line cards are standardized in size and face power limitations to avoid overheating and complete breakdown of the system, increasing channel capacity usually requires adding more line cards and additional investment. GEMINAX PRO’s low power consumption, decreased chip count as well as per-channel footprint of only 500 square mm (0.78 square inches) means that capacity per line card and shelf can be significantly increased.

The new ADSL2+ chipset is designed for high density systems such as central office Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexers (DSLAMs), Digital Loop Carriers (DLCs) or Multi-Service Access Platforms (MSAPs). It extends the widely deployed GEMINAX MAX product family and supports ADSL full-rate (G.992.1), ADSL-lite (G.992.2), ADSL2 (G.992.3), ADSL2-lite (G.992.4) and ADSL2+ (G.992.5) standards

The GEMINAX PRO chipset is software compatible with the widely deployed GEMINAX MAX ADSL2+ chipset. Software compatibility allows system vendors using GEMINAX MAX to reduce their design cycle and achieve faster time to market.

For Integrated Voice and Data (IVD) applications, the GEMINAX-PRO ADSL2+ chipset can be enhanced by Infineon’s VINETIC family of voice codecs or by IEC-4 ISDN transceivers respectively. The DSL network processor ConverGate as well as the Amazon family of ADSL2+ CPE products from Infineon allow designers to build complete end-to-end system solutions.

GEMINAX –D16 PRO is offered in a 23x23mm PG-LBGA-484 package, the GEMINAX-AL4 comes in a 13x17mm PG-BGA-192 package. Samples will be available in May, and volume production is planned for the third quarter of 2005. The GEMINAX PRO chipset is priced at US-Dollar 6.00 per line for sample quantities.

About Infineon

Infineon Technologies AG, Munich, Germany, offers semiconductor and system solutions for automotive, industrial and multimarket sectors, for applications in communication, as well as memory products. With a global presence, Infineon operates through its subsidiaries in the US from San Jose, CA, in the Asia-Pacific region from Singapore and in Japan from Tokyo. In fiscal year 2004 (ending September), the company achieved sales of Euro 7.19 billion with about 35,600 employees worldwide. Infineon is listed on the DAX index of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker symbol: IFX).