COVER INTERVIEW The power industry is a big competitive space. How does Intersil differentiate itself from other competitors? I would say that we have three major strategic advantages. One would be in the mobile industry. Our mobile devices are serving a range of mobile products from ultrabooks to smartphones to enable longer battery life. We are applying decades of learning to solve one of the most pressing design challenges in these portable devices. As form factors continue to get smaller and functionality increases, the need for battery efficiency only increases, putting this market right in the cross hairs of our core capability. In terms of the industrial and infrastructure markets, our focus is delivering power efficiency and improved power density. Everyone is aware of the explosion of data centers. Customers building and maintaining these large compute farms point to power as their number one challenge. Better power efficiency reduces the cost of running the datacenter and better power density enables more computational power in a smaller footprint, further reducing cost. Intersil is one of very few companies with the digital power management capability to fundamentally improve the power architecture in these systems. Thirdly, we have presence in key end markets such as automotive and aerospace where we have strong brand recognition with market leading products. These tend to be markets characterized by very demanding requirements. Here, too, we can take our core technology, ruggedize it and enable customers to achieve the meaningful incremental improvements needed in these long life cycle products. As far as the overall market is concerned, what do you see as the biggest opportunity for growth in power management?
Power management is already a greater than $10 billion market. We’ve talked about some of the largest opportunities, mobile devices and the build out of wired and wireless infrastructure. We expect to capitalize on the expansion of smart devices both in the home and in the factory creating applications we could not have conceptualized a couple of years ago. The idea of the Internet of Things is beginning to take shape, and the need for low power end points with years of battery life in a small footprint means there will continue to be many new opportunities for Intersil. We also see the electrification of the car as a major growth area over time. The need in hybrid and electric vehicles for battery management and the pervasiveness of electronics in general, both inside the cabin and under the hood, are creating a host of new opportunities to apply leading edge power management capabilities.
“Our technology is valued by the most successful and demanding customers in the industry, and they want us to create more products based on that technology.�
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