ESS Relicenses Kilopass XPM Memory

Update: Synopsys Expands DesignWare IP Portfolio with Acquisition of Kilopass Technology (Jan. 10, 2018)

Kilopass provides Foundry Portability and Second-Source Alternatives

Santa Clara, California -- February 4, 2009 -- Kilopass Technology, a leading provider of semiconductor non-volatile memory (NVM) intellectual property (IP), announced today that ESS Technology, a leader in the design and marketing of high-performance audio/video products for the consumer market and a customer of Kilopass for over three years, is now using the same Kilopass product in multiple foundries. Second-source foundries are critical for cost containment and for ensuring product delivery in these uncertain times. Kilopass’s low-cost, highly secure One-Time Programmable (OTP) XPM memory technology is used by ESS for HDMI/HDCP key storage in their ICs.

“Controlling costs has always been a critical requirement for ESS; with each generation of products, the consumer market requires smaller and less expensive devices with more features,” said Robert Blair, President and CEO of ESS Technology. “When we first started using Kilopass’s products three years ago, we were replacing EPROMS used to store HDCP keys. Kilopass’s technology allowed us to reduce the board form factor and reduce the total system cost by decreasing the BOM. Now, Kilopass’s products have provided us with a migration path to second source foundries, enabling lower cost solutions and guaranteed availability.”

“One of my first customer visits as the new CEO of Kilopass was to ESS Technology,” said Kilopass CEO, Charlie Cheng. “Their commitment to our technology, trust in our service, and their long-term relationship highlighted the great value that Kilopass provides to its customers. Our customers trust us to provide highly reliable products that assure high yields, reliable products and no customer returns. In this economic market, controlling costs is everything, and it is great to know that our customers return to us for each new generation of products.”

Kilopass’s XPM technology is designed to be foundry independent. The technology is built using standard, commercially available CMOS logic process technologies. There are no design rule violations. XPM is fully scalable, making it available in leading edge process technologies as soon as they have become available from the foundry.

About XPM

Kilopass XPM is available in over 30 foundry processes. With this expansive offering and comprehensive qualification methodology, Kilopass enables SOC designers to integrate XPM from 180nm to 45nm with high reliability. Applications range from a few hundred bits for unique ID to prevent cloning, to multiple instances of 1Mb for program code storage. Over 50+ customers have integrated XPM in over 150+ designs. Many of the designs, up to 90nm, are ramping up to high-volume production or have been in high-volume production since 2003.

About ESS Technology

ESS Technology, Inc. designs and markets high-performance digital audio and video products for the consumer digital entertainment market. ESS products include highly integrated chips for DVD players, VCD players, digital media players and digital audio systems. ESS is headquartered in Fremont, California. For more information, please visit ESS Technology at www.esstech.com.

About Kilopass

Kilopass Technology, Inc., a fast-growing supplier of embedded NVM intellectual property, leverages standard logic CMOS processes to deliver one-time programmable (OTP) structures based on its extra-permanent memory (XPM) technology. The memory can be used for the storage of firmware, security codes, calibration data and other application-critical information. Kilopass is funded by BlueRun Ventures, iGlobe Partners, Pitango Venture Capital, and US Venture Partners. The company is headquartered in Santa Clara, CA. For more information, please visit www.kilopass.com or email info@kilopass.com .