NEC Electronics America Expands ASIC IP Portfolio with Tensilica’s Xtensa Configurable Processor

Santa Clara, Calif. – March 14, 2005 – Tensilica, Inc. today announced that it has signed an agreement with NEC Electronics America, Inc. that will enable NEC Electronics America to distribute Tensilica’s Xtensa V configurable processors directly to NEC Electronics America’s ASIC customers. Through this partnership agreement, Tensilica aims to expand its customer base while NEC Electronics America augments its strong intellectual property (IP) portfolio for its system-on-chip (SoC) customers.

“As a leading integrated device manufacturer, it is important that we offer our customers not only state-of-the-art semiconductor process and manufacturing capabilities, but also provide a broad IP portfolio that includes the latest interface, memory, and processor core technologies,” said Phillip LoPresti, associate vice president and general manager, Custom LSI strategic business unit, NEC Electronics America. “The Xtensa processors are a welcome addition to NEC Electronics America’s ASIC IP library. Their customization capabilities make them ideal replacements for blocks of logic that previously would be handcrafted in Verilog or VHDL. By using processors instead of logic blocks, our customers will benefit from the inherent programmability, reduced verification time and much faster design times.”

Under the agreement, Tensilica’s Xtensa V processors are directly available to NEC Electronics America’s customers under one licensing agreement along with the ASIC chip production. NEC Electronics America will be able to provide a complete solution for companies pursuing high-volume projects that demand the flexibility of a configurable processor in a feature-rich, high-density ASIC technology with world-class support.

“This agreement is an important step forward in broadening the distribution of our configurable processor technology to a wider number of systems companies and fabless semiconductor suppliers,” stated Steve Roddy, Tensilica’s Vice President of Marketing. “NEC Electronics America has a strong customer base, particularly in networking and consumer electronics markets, and a solid reputation for supporting their customers with the best available ASIC technologies. We’re proud to be part of their IP portfolio.”

About Tensilica

Tensilica was founded in July 1997 to address the growing need for optimized, application-specific microprocessor solutions in high-volume embedded applications. With a configurable and extensible microprocessor core called Xtensa, Tensilica is the only company that has automated and patented the time-consuming process of generating a customized microprocessor core along with a complete software development tool environment, producing new configurations in a matter of hours. For more information, visit www.tensilica.com.

# # #

Editors’ Notes:

Tensilica, and Xtensa are registered trademarks belonging to Tensilica Inc.. All other company and product names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
Tensilica’s announced licensees include Agilent, ALPS, AMCC (JNI Corporation), Astute Networks, ATI, Avision, Bay Microsystems, Berkeley Wireless Research Center, Broadcom, Cisco Systems, Conexant Systems, Cypress, Crimson Microsystems, ETRI, FUJIFILM Microdevices, Fujitsu Ltd., Hudson Soft, Hughes Network Systems, Ikanos Communications, LG Electronics, Marvell, NEC Laboratories America, NEC Corporation, NetEffect, Nippon Telephone and Telegraph (NTT), Olympus Optical Co. Ltd., S2io, Solid State Systems, Sony, STMicroelectronics, Stretch, TranSwitch Corporation, and Victor Company of Japan (JVC).