Corrent Chooses Faraday's NC-1 for Network Security Processor Chip

HSINCHU, Taiwan and SUNNYVALE, Calif., June 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Faraday Technology Corporation (TAIEX: 3035), a leading ASIC and IP provider, today announces Corrent as its first publicly announced customer for its NetComposer-1 (NC-1) structured ASIC chip. Corrent expects to disclose the details of how they are using this next generation network security chip in their security appliances in early 2006, and starts mass production in Q1, 2006.

"I am elated to see the NC-1 customers coming to the market; it's been a long time coming," said H.P. Lin, President of Faraday Technology. "We have invested almost two years in this new market, and now it's finally paying off, significantly expanding Faraday's served available market (SAM)."

Indeed, the SAM for semiconductor products accelerating Ethernet to PCI/PCI-X/PCI-Express market is estimated to be almost $500M dollars per year. These products are complex, proprietary in nature, and very application dependent, from security to RDMA to TCP acceleration to XML processing. However, the fragmented nature also makes it difficult for many companies to find an appropriate ASSP, or to justify the ASIC development cost in 0.13um.

Faraday's NC-1 combines the convenience of an ASSP with the flexibility of Structured ASICs. Unlike existing structured ASIC products on the market, the NC-1 includes a unique data path design with pre-verified integrated intelligent IP blocks, while offering two million usable logic gates and one million bits of SRAM for customers to embed their application logic. The SoC integration results in a significant reduction in logic verification time, while enabling design teams to focus on their value-added L4-L7 applications, thus achieving shorter time to market and far more aggressive cost reduction targets, not previously possible. With 10x the price/performance of similar FPGA-based designs, one-third of the NRE costs and one-third of the production lead time of a typical 0.13um ASIC, the NC-1 combines high performance, low development costs and fast time to market attributes -- all in one platform.

"We are very excited about the NC-1 product line," said Richard Takahashi, President and CEO of Corrent Corporation. "It expands our lead and differentiation in the mid-range and high-end network security appliances market segments, while cutting down our development time and costs by 2x and 4X, respectively."

Another benefit of the NC-1 is its design efficiency. Since 60% of the device is implemented as a full custom ASIC, including an integrated 133 MHz/64-bit PCI-X controller, two GbE MACs, a 450MHz ARMTM v4-compliant CPU, a 150MHz DDR-1 controller, a Switch Fabric and all necessary peripherals, the NC-1's time-to-market solution and price is competitive enough even for ASSP companies such as Corrent.

"The NC-1 has validated Faraday's Composer Series' product vision of combining structured ASIC technology with ASSP logic, thus enabling the concept of a metal programmable SoC," said Christopher Moezzi, Vice President of Business Development and Structured ASIC Marketing at Faraday USA. "We intend to aggressively pursue the expansion of the NetComposer product line to include next generation SerDes I/O technologies such as PCI-Express, XAUI, S-ATA/SAS and SGMII."

About NC-1

The NetComposer-1(TM) (NC-1) is a highly integrated SoC platform that combines Faraday's state-of-the-art industry leading Metal Programmable Cell Array(TM) Structured ASIC technology (MPCA) with integrated pre-verified intelligent system blocks. The NC-1 structured ASIC has been architecturally optimized for applications that demand high performance L4-L7 Flow-through PCI-X to GbE or full-duplex in-line GbE to GbE data path processing. Semiconductor and OEM companies can use NC-1 as a foundation platform for architecting their next generation ASSP or ASICs in market segments such as networking, communications, computing, server, storage, and security appliances.

About Corrent Corporation

An innovative developer of network security appliances, Corrent is today's price/performance leader in Network Security technology. Through a network of value-added resellers and key system integrators, Corrent offers businesses of all sizes the industry's best performing security technology at every market price-point. Integrating Corrent's award-winning network security processors, with software from today's market-leading security vendors, Corrent's full-line of purpose-built appliances helps secure businesses against increasingly frequent and virulent network attacks. Based in Tempe, AZ, Corrent is an international company setting higher standards for value and performance. For more information visit: http://www.corrent.com

About Faraday Technology Corporation

Faraday Technology Corporation is a leading silicon IP and fabless ASIC vendor. The company's broad IP portfolio includes 32-bit RISC CPUs, USB 2.0, Ethernet, Serial ATA, and PCI-Express. With more than 500 employees and 2004 revenue of $159 million, Faraday is one of the largest fabless ASIC companies in the Asia-Pacific region, and it also has a significant presence in other markets, worldwide. Headquartered in Taiwan, Faraday has service and support offices around the world, including the U.S., Japan, Europe, and China. For more information, please visit: http://www.faraday-tech.com