Vishay/Siliconix discontinued production of lateral DMOS switch transistors and transferred the business to a second-source supplier.
The Santa Clara, Calif., subsidiary of Vishay Intertechnology Inc. said Linear Integrated Systems Inc., a manufacturer of specialty linear parts, has agreed to continue the LDMOS product line for at least four years and pay Siliconix undisclosed royalties on sales of the devices, which include the SD500, SD5400, SST211, and SST215.
According to Swapan Banerjee, senior director of marketing at Siliconix, the move is part of an effort to phase out low-priority product lines and emphasize the company’s more profitable power MOSFET chips, which are mostly run on its Trench BiCMOS processes.
“We needed to get the fabs concentrated on processes we believe will be more beneficial to us,” Banerjee said.
The LDMOS transistors, which typically go into analog measurement systems built by companies such as Agilent and Tektronix, generated less than $20 million annually for Siliconix, he said.
Under the agreement with Linear Integrated, Siliconix will transfer production masks, technical expertise, and marketing information for the products to the Fremont, Calif., company.
Linear Integrated specializes in small-signal discrete components that are drop-in replacements for current and discontinued parts from a range of linear-IC suppliers, including Intersil, Motorola, and Vishay Siliconix.