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Linear Technology and Primarion Announce Digital Power Alliance

Posted on: Monday, 3 April 2006, 09:00 CDT

MILPITAS, Calif. and TORRANCE, Calif., April 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Linear Technology Corporation , a leading supplier of high performance analog integrated circuits, and Primarion, Inc., a leading supplier of digital power conversion integrated circuits, today announced an alliance to produce digital point-of-load (POL) products for the networking, computing and telecommunications infrastructure markets.

Linear Technology and Primarion will dual source Primarion's Di-POL(TM) family of PMBus(TM)-compliant digital DC/DC controllers, beginning with the PX7510. The PMBus standard enables system-level communications with multiple POL converters for programming and monitoring of complex power systems.

The agreement between the two companies involves dual sourcing and mutual promotion of programmable digital POL controllers targeting infrastructure applications including servers, network switches and routers. These digital power management and conversion products provide flexible, system-level control of sophisticated power management systems. The Di-POL controller ICs provide seamless power management in high availability systems, enabling real-time programming and monitoring of key parameters to optimize performance and maximize system uptime.

"This exclusive agreement with Primarion enables us to offer our worldwide customers state-of-the-art digital power solutions," stated Dave Bell, President of Linear Technology. "Our LTC7510 digital POL controller provides identical features to Primarion's PX7510, and is just the first member in a family of digital power solutions. These PMBus-compliant products provide a new level of design flexibility desired by certain customers, along with Linear Technology's outstanding reliability and worldwide technical support."

Ron Van Dell, President and CEO of Primarion, stated, "This alliance moves digital power management toward mainstream application by ensuring that customers have dual sources for this flexible digital power solution. Our Di-POL products are at the leading edge in delivering the full value of integrated digital power management. We are excited to partner with Linear Technology to jointly advance the application of digital power solutions to an expanding group of high-volume infrastructure customers."

The PX7510 and LTC7510 are single-phase, step-down DC/DC controllers that provide for outputs down to 0.7V. A digital feedback control loop, combined with calibrated analog functions, provides a flexible, high performance solution. The industry-standard PMBus interface is used to implement all control functions via on-chip non-volatile memory, enabling easy design optimization with minimum component count for clean and efficient designs.

About Linear Technology

Linear Technology Corporation, a manufacturer of high performance linear integrated circuits, was founded in 1981, became a public company in 1986 and joined the S&P 500 index of major public companies in 2000. Linear Technology products include high performance amplifiers, comparators, voltage references, monolithic filters, linear regulators, DC-DC converters, battery chargers, data converters, communications interface circuits, RF signal conditioning circuits, and many other analog functions. Applications for Linear Technology's high performance circuits include telecommunications, cellular telephones, networking products such as optical switches, notebook and desktop computers, computer peripherals, video/multimedia, industrial instrumentation, security monitoring devices, high-end consumer products such as digital cameras and MP3 players, complex medical devices, automotive electronics, factory automation, process control, and military and space systems. For more information, visit http://www.linear.com/.

About Primarion

Primarion is a mixed-signal integrated circuit company that addresses key inflection points in power and I/O driven by the exploding demand for digital content and information. Primarion's Digital Power ICs are well positioned to compete against existing solutions in cost, performance and features. Primarion I/O ICs enable digitally controlled optical links for storage, networking and computing. Headquartered in Torrance, California, near Los Angeles, the company also has offices in Phoenix, Arizona, and Taipei, Taiwan. Primarion has received funding from eminent venture funds such as Accel Partners, Lehman Brothers, APV Technology Partners, and W Capital Partners. Additional information is available online at http://www.primarion.com/ or at (866) 321-7746.

Note: LT and LTC are registered trademarks of Linear Technology Corporation. PMBus is a trademark of Power Management Bus Implementers Forum. PRIMARION(R) and Di-POL(TM) are the registered and proprietary trademarks of Primarion, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Linear Technology Corporation

CONTACT: John Hamburger of Linear Technology Corp., +1-408-432-1900,ext. 2419, or jhamburger@linear.com; or Deepak Savadatti of Primarion,+1-310-602-5500, or deepak.savadatti@primarion.com; or Stephanie Mayo ofShelton, +1-972-239-5119, ext. 139, or smayo@sheltongroup.com, for Primarion

Web site: http://www.primarion.com/

Web site: http://www.linear.com/

Source: PRNewswire-FirstCall

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