Mitel Semi merchant effort bares voice/data parts

Electronic News, Feb 28, 1994 by Walter Andrews

KANATA, ONTARIO--As an intial step in a company resurgence into merchant and OEM markets, Mitel Semiconductor, here, last week introduced two digital switch ICs allowing network system designers to handle both voice and data.

"These are the first switches that allows designers of things like multiplexers, or other types of networking equipment, to very efficiently handle both voice and data without incurring... large software overhead," Dan Cordingley, Mitel Semiconductor's director of marketing, said. "Key markets for these are multiplexer applications like PBXs. The deal with PBXs is they now want to put data through them in addition to voice traffic."

Mr. Cordingley said Mitel Semiconductors, which makes both ICs and hybrids, planned to roll out 10 or more new semiconductor products over the next year or so. Kirk Mandy, Mitel Semiconductor's vice president and general manager, said the two new IC switches will be produced by a UMC fab in Taiwan using a 0.8-micron, 4-in. wafers over the next year so at its own fab in Bromont, Quebec, he said. The fab can currently handle processing down to 1.5 micron; the 8980, which is made at Bromont, uses a 2-micron process, he said.

Both new parts essentially are upgrades of Mitel's standard MT8980 switch, which Mr. Cordingley said has had annual sales of about $20 million. "One of the requirements our customers has asked us for is to modify the (8090) switch to make it more conducive to handling voice and data," he noted.

The new MT8985 switch is a 256 by 256 non-blocking switch for PCM-encoded voice or data in digital central office exchange, PBXs, multiplexers, voice processing systems, or Mitel's multi-vendor integration procotol (MVIP) for switch/host interfaces-representing the mainstream Mitel Semiconductor customer base which is the part's target. The part's double buffer allows the design of a constant delay through the switch, a key feature for multimedia applications, both voice and data. Prices starts at $11.64 in 1,000 quantities.

Aimed at new systems (includEng the same systems as the MT8985 as well as hubs, routers and other private and public network systems), the new MT8985 multiple-rate digital switch adds higher I/O data rates and the ability to switch 4-bit "nibble," ADPCM streams. With higher I/O streams, designers can reduce the required communications links, either on the PBM or across backplanes, Mitel said. New emerging applications such as digital video conferencing also will be eased by the higher rate I/O, the company said. Price starts at $14.54 in quantities of 1,000.

Mitel said the MT8985 also supplies 8-bit or 4-bit channel switching in either 256 by 256 or 512 by 256 channel configurations respectively. The 4-bit, or "nibble" channel, switching is intented for voice PCM channels that have been compressed to 32kb/s, as in ADPCM applications.

In January, Mitel Semiconductor introduced a new bi-blocking array that is digitally programmable. Prices begin at $11.54 each in 1,000 quantities.

Mr. Mandy said sales of about $85 million for the 1994 fiscal years, respectively. Of 1994's $85 million, about $70 miillion is in external sales and the rest are captive sales to Mitel PBX, telephone and related telecom system businesses. In the 1980s, most of the semiconductor group's sales were internal, Mr. Mandy said. "We hit the 50-50 threshold in 1989."

"We think we'll hit about $100 million next year," he said. The semiconductor group accounts for about 20 percent of the sales of the parent Mitel Corp. Mr. Mandy estimated the parent would have about $480 million in FY94 sales compared to $423 million last year. Until last year, Mitel Corp.'s sales were flat around $400 million in the 1980s after peaking at that figure in 1985, he said.

Overall, Mitel Corp. divides its sales into three geographical areas: the Americas, which are growing about 20 percent annually; Asia, mostly China and Korea, which is growing 30 percent each year, and Europe, which is increasing 10 percent yearly. China sales are estimated to be $20 million in FY94 compared to $8 million in FY93, and are projected to jump to $30 million in FY95, Mr Mandy said.

Mitel essentially is still from the doldrums in the years before a group of investors bought for $40.3 million a 51 percent share in the company held by British Telecommunication plc (EN, June 22, 1992).