Intersil Leads Investment in Arizona Chip Startup Primarion
Probing the Market
By MICHAEL LYSTER
Irvine-based chipmaker Intersil Corp. has taken part in a $47 million venture investment in Primarion Corp., a Tempe, Ariz., chip designer started by former Intel Corp. executives.
Intersil’s investment in Primarion wasn’t disclosed. Intersil led the funding round along with the venture capital arm of Lehman Brothers Inc.
Other investors in the round, Primarion’s third, included: Palo Alto-based Accel Partners; APV Technology Partners of Menlo Park; Intel Capital, the chipmaker’s venture arm; and Koch Ventures, the venture group of Wichita, Kan.-based Koch Industries Inc.
Late last year, Intersil said it planned to work with Primarion on chips that manage power in high-end desktop PCs, servers and notebook computers. Primarion, formed in 1999, is working on chips that manage power for processors with clock speeds of up to 10 gigahertz.
“Working with Primarion to co-develop power solutions for next generation processors means remaining on the course defined by Moore’s Law,”‘ said Rick Furtney, vice president and general manager of Intersil’s analog chip business.
Primarion plans to use its latest money raised to fund product development and commercialization. The company, which has a design center in Torrance, also is working on so-called optical interconnects,circuits that could replace metal wires used to transfer data inside computers.
