MUNICH -- Infineon Technologies AG (FSE/NYSE:IFX), the world’s leading supplier of ICs for T/E carrier grade telecomsystems, today introduced OctalFALC™, the industry’s smallest FALC® (Framerand Line Interface Unit Component) offering eight ports per chip. The latestmember of Infineon’s FALC product family doubles the density per chip usedin universal line cards and reduces the bill of material by around 15percent. OctalFALC addresses the growing global voice and multimedia trafficover fixed and mobile telephone networks; in 2003 worldwide voice trafficalone amounted to nearly 200 billion minutes. On average, three in everyfour of the world’s 19 million cellular base-stations that are used totransport wireless voice and data communication are equipped with ICs fromInfineon.

OctalFALC is the industry’s first eight channel, single-chip component thatuses arbitrary input clocks and integrates analog switches, resulting inreduced circuit board complexity and bill of material. With eight ports on afootprint of 289 square millimeters, OctalFALC offers twice as many channelsin almost the same space as previous generations. It supports all threePrimary Rate standards T1/E1/J1 and is ideally suited for applications suchas 2G/3G Wireless Base Stations, DSLAM (DSL Access Multiplexers), DigitalAccess Cross-Connect and DLC (Digital Loop Carrier) systems.

A recent report issued by the market research firm Gartner Dataquest expectsan annual growth rate in the deployment of T1/E1 ports of 10 percent peryear worldwide, mainly driven by advanced services offered over 3G cellularnetworks - such as short text messages, images, and even video.

“Designers of T1/E1 line cards have four main criteria when selectingcomponents: time to market, small size, low power and specificationcompliance. The Infineon OctalFALC meets all of these criteria, withsoftware compatibility to recent FALC versions, state-of-the-art packagingand process technology,” said Christian Wolff, Vice President of theWireline Communications Business Group and General Manager of the AccessBusiness Unit at Infineon Technologies.

Infineon Technologies AG