EL SEGUNDO, Calif. February 2004 - The editors of EDN Magazine have selected a power management innovation from International Rectifier (NYSE:IRF), a world leader in power management technology, as a finalist in EDN's Innovation of the Year Awards Competition.

The panel of technical editors have selected the International Rectifier XPhase™ chip set, which defines a new scalable, distributed power architecture for today's most advanced microprocessors used in servers, workstations, and networking equipment.

Developed specifically for multiphase, interleaved buck DC-DC converters, IR's XPhase chip set consists of the IR3081 Control IC and the IR3086 Phase IC, and provides a high performance solution that exceeds VRM or EVRD 10.x requirements. Unlike other multiphase solutions that are limited in the number of phases they drive, the IR XPhase architecture can support from 1 to "X" phases. Phases can be added or removed without changing the fundamental design.

"We're gratified by the continued industry confirmation of the XPhase family of products and the new power management architecture it supports. XPhase is a testament to IR's focus on fundamental power management issues facing those in the information technology business and in delivering architectures that leverage the best in silicon, packaging and power management processes to solve their problems. XPhase is an invaluable tool motherboard designers can deploy to effectively deal with the unpredictable nature of CPU requirements over the life of a platform," said Gene Sheridan, Vice-President, Computing and Communications Business Unit at International Rectifier.

The IR3081 Control IC in the 28-lead MLPQ package contains all one-per-converter circuitry, including voltage identification (VID) pull-up resistors, PWM ramp oscillator, error amplifier, bias voltage, fault detection and other necessary functions. The IR3086 Phase IC in the 20-lead MLPQ package drives and monitors a single phase in a multiphase converter. The IR3086 Phase IC includes all one-per-phase circuitry that includes gate drivers, PWM comparator and latch, over-voltage protection, and current sensing and sharing and programmable over-temperature detection.

A patent-pending body braking control feature achieves nearly two times improvement in inductor slew rate, improving transient response time and efficiency. This control technique turns off the synchronous rectifier MOSFET in response to a significant decrease in load current. Besides permitting the use of larger inductor values, body braking also helps to decrease output capacitor requirements, reducing solution cost and size.

A panel of EDN's technical editors selected the finalists in 13 product categories. EDN's readers will select the winners through an online ballot at:

The deadline for voting is February 19.

Winners will be announced on March 29, 2004 at an awards ceremony at the W Hotel, San Francisco, CA. EDN is a premier electronics design magazine published by Reed Business Information, headquartered in Newton, Massachusetts.