Can you describe briefly your main line of business?
Power Integrations is the leading supplier of high-voltage analogue integrated circuits used in energy-efficient power conversion. The company's innovative technology enables compact, energy-efficient power supplies in a wide range of electronic products, in AC-DC, DC-DC and LED lighting applications. Since its introduction in 1998, Power Integrations' EcoSmart® energy-efficiency technology has saved an estimated $3.1 billion of standby energy waste and prevented millions of tons of CO2 emissions.
What is your best selling product and where do you ship it most?
Power Integrations' TinySwitch low-power AC-DC converter is the best selling product in the history of our company. In the past, it's been very popular in cell phone adapters, set-top boxes, white goods, and other consumer electronics. TinySwitch is currently the preferred device for PC standby power applications due to its high efficiency at light load, and PI's customary high reliability and quality.
The rising star at PI is our LinkSwitch product family, which has all the benefits of TinySwitch and is also a primary-side-controlled, accurate constant voltage / constant current device, eliminating the optocoupler and feedback circuits. We expect LinkSwitch shipments to eventually outpace TinySwitch, as more customers get comfortable using accurate primary-side-controlled solutions in non-adapter applications.
What's your roadmap from here?
PI does not publish roadmaps, but I can tell you that we do have some exciting new products in development. We are focusing on extending the range and applicability of our product lines into new markets, as well as integrating new features and lowering system costs for our customers.
How do you manage to differentiate yourself from the competition?
PI products include both the switching FET and the controller on a single die. The intimate relationship between the two allows us to make a more effective and reliable product. We always include safety features that protect the load and the user, and we pride ourselves on making our parts easy to design with so that even a novice engineer can be successful using PI devices.
We also differentiate ourselves by our business practices. For example, to help our customers with unexpected business upside, we maintain a large inventory of finished goods. We've also established a system-level RMA analysis team in San Jose, capable of figuring out what happened to parts that are returned for any reason. This overall package means that PI customers are very loyal because we address a complete set of needs, rather than only delivering competitive price and performance.
What would make your life easier in this business?
Stable exchange rates would help. We have wafer foundries in Japan and Germany, assembly/test in China, Malaysia, and Thailand, and customers all over the world. We have always isolated customers from the more violent swings in commodity, labor, and material costs so that they can rely on stable prices and supply from PI. The large swings in the value of the dollar and commodity prices over the last year have been a challenge to manage; our Operations team has done a great job and none of our customers have experienced a shortage or price increase.
Do you have any predictions for the industry over the next 12 months?
I predict that there will be 12 more months... but that's as far as I'm willing to stick my neck out in terms of predictions right now. The world macroeconomic situation is clearly unstable and we'll just have to manage our way through it one day at a time.
