Infineon Presents World’s First Intelligent Wireless Control Receiver

Munich, Germany – November 14, 2006 – Infineon Technologies (FSE/NYSE: IFX) today announced its next-generation wireless control receiver family TDA523X, designed for automotive and industrial as well as home automation applications.  It targets wireless control applications that require low power consumption and compact design.  The TDA523X is ideally suited for use in garage door openers, set top boxes, security systems, remote keyless entry, tire pressure monitoring systems, and many other low power applications.  It is designed for use in the Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) bands 315MHz, 434MHz and 868 MHz.  Due to its intelligent functionalities the TDA523X is capable of taking over some of the tasks that are usually being performed by the system’s microcontroller.

 

“With the TDA523X we are entering a new era in wireless control receivers.  No comparable component is available today.  Other than conventional receivers, which simply receive signals and pass them on, the TDA523x is capable of decoding incoming signals down to the deepest level, of differentiating between relevant and irrelevant data, to then decide which data are valid and need to be forwarded to the microcontroller.  It is the only intelligent receiver in the market”, said Torsten Fischer, Marketing Director at the Sense and Control business unit at Infineon.  “It takes part of the workload off the microprocessor in the application.  Because of this, customers save the time and cost usually spent on the software needed to program the microcontrollers.”  Fischer is convinced that the new receiver “will shorten time-to-market for our customers’ applications.”

 

To equip the component with its intelligent functionalities, Infineon is one of the first semiconductor companies to manufacture wireless control components in CMOS-technology.  Most wireless control receivers up to now are being made in bipolar technology which is not suitable for integrating comprehensive logic on the chip.

 

In addition to its smart features, with only 8 mA in active and 1 µA in power down mode, the TDA523X consumes very little power and thus ensures a long battery-life. The implemented autonomous wakeup functionality and configurable self polling features drive down the true average power consumption to 200 µA whereas conventional receivers require about 1 mA.

 

The high sensitivity (typ. -108 dBm ASK/FSK) image-reject RF-front-end is followed by a flexible digital baseband that enables the receiver to take over some of tasks usually performed by the host microcontroller.  The TDA523X is a highly-flexible multi-channel receiver that can be reprogrammed on the fly.  Due to this architecture, it can serve different applications completely on its own, which reduces the complexity of the entire system.  Since the receiver does not have one channel only, like conventional receivers, but offers up to 17 channels it also is far more robust against interfering signals.

 

Infineon is market leader worldwide for Wireless Control ICs, and Fischer sees great further potential:  “The TDA 523X will revolutionize the market for wireless control receivers.  We expect more than 25 million pieces sold over the next five years.  This want to reinforce our position and extend our market share even further”, said Fischer.

 

Technical Features of the TDA523X receiver family

The TDA523X includes the following advanced features:

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 through its subsidiary Qimonda. 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 2005 (ending September), the company achieved sales of Euro 6.76 billion with about 36,400 employees worldwide.  Infineon is listed on the DAX index of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker symbol: IFX).

 

Further information is available at www.infineon.com

Further information on Qimonda is available at www.qimonda.com