Intersil sells wireless networking group; lays off 8% of employees

Milpitas, CA— To complete its transition into a pure analog semiconductor company and strengthen its finances, Intersil Corp. recently sold its Wireless Networking Product Group to GlobespanVirata Inc. for $250 million in cash and more than 15 million shares of Globespan’s stock. Intersil expects to report a gain from the transaction in its third quarter financial statements. Intersil serves what it says are three of the industry’s fastest growing markets: flat panel displays, optical storage (CD and DVD recordable) and power management.

‘Intersil was highly instrumental in creating the wireless local area networking (WLAN) market. We’re proud of the outstanding job our team has done over the past five years making us the acknowledged industry leader under our Prism brand,’ says Rich Beyer, Intyersil’s president and CEO. ‘We have confidence that GlobespanVirata is the right company to continue this success and will provide further innovation to maintain Prism’s leadership position.’

In connection with the sale, Intersil implemented several cost reductions to better align its resources with its new analog structure. These actions include a workforce reduction of approximately 8% that will be mostlyups: Power Management, Elantec and Standard Analog.

Control Engineering Daily News DeskJim Montague, news editorjmontague@reedbusiness.com

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