Siliconix Unveils TrenchFETs Built on 178 Million Cell/Square Inch Process: New Technology Enables Record-Breaking Solutions for Portable Power Management.

Business Editors

SANTA CLARA, Calif--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 28, 2000

Siliconix incorporated (Nasdaq: SILI), an 80.4 percent-owned subsidiary of Vishay Intertechnology Inc. (NYSE: VSH), Wednesday announced that it is sampling power MOSFETs built on an advanced silicon technology that will enable a new generation of record-breaking devices for power management and power conversion in end products from cell phones to the fixed communications infrastructure that powers the Internet.

The new proprietary TrenchFET(R) process enables smaller, higher-efficiency devices by increasing the transistor density on the silicon level to 178 million cells per square inch, a more than five-fold improvement over the previous state of the art.

For a given area of silicon, the new Vishay Siliconix process will allow on-resistance, the key figure of merit for power MOSFETs, to be reduced by upwards of 30 percent for a given device.

Based on this technology breakthrough, Siliconix is now able to offer a power MOSFET in the SO-8 PowerPAK(TM) package with record on-resistance of just 2 milliohms.

Complete families of devices aimed at such applications as cell phone and notebook computer power management, and dc-to-dc conversion for desktop computers and the fixed telecom infrastructure, will be released by Siliconix over the next few months.

"Siliconix was the first in the industry to offer power MOSFETs built on trench silicon technology, which has now become the standard for this device type," said Dr. King Owyang, president and chief executive officer of Vishay Siliconix.

"With this latest advance, we're pushing the envelope again with devices that will play a key role in enabling smaller, lighter end products that will run longer on smaller batteries."

Siliconix pioneered the development of vertical trench power MOSFETs to overcome the limitations of planar DMOS devices, where a parasitic junction FET effect places a severe limit on the benefit of increasing transistor cell densities.

TrenchFETs overcome this barrier by vertically redirecting the current flow in the device's channel in a direct path between the topside source and the backside drain contact. The first Siliconix TrenchFETs, built on an 8 million cells per square inch technology, were released in 1994, and were the first commercially available devices of their kind.

About Siliconix

Siliconix, a company of Vishay Intertechnology Inc., is a leading manufacturer of power MOSFETs, power ICs, and analog signal processing devices for computers, cell phones, fixed communications networks, automobiles, and other electronic systems.

With 1999 worldwide sales of $383 million, the company's facilities include Class 1, six-inch wafer fabs dedicated to the manufacture of power products in Santa Clara and Itzehoe, Germany. Analog switches, analog multiplexers, and low-power transistors are fabricated in the company's four-inch wafer fab in Santa Clara and by a subcontractor in Beijing, China.

Assembly and test facilities include a company-owned facility in Taiwan, a joint venture in Shanghai, China, and subcontractors in the Philippines, China, and the United States.

About Vishay Intertechnology Inc.

Vishay Intertechnology Inc., a Fortune 1,000 company with an annual sales rate of $2.4 billion, is the largest U.S. and European manufacturer of passive electronic components (resistors, capacitors, inductors) and a major producer of discrete semiconductors (diodes, optoelectronics, transistors), IrDCs (infrared communication devices), and power and analog switching integrated circuits.

The company's components are vital to electronic operations and can be found in products manufactured in a very broad range of industries worldwide.

With headquarters in Malvern, Pa., Vishay employs over 20,000 people in more than 60 plants in the United States, Mexico, Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom, France, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Israel, Taiwan, China, and the Philippines. Vishay can be found on the Internet at http://www.vishay.com.

TrenchFET is a registered trademark of Siliconix incorporated. PowerPAK is a trademark of Siliconix incorporated.