Innovative Semiconductors iPHY USB 2.0 Transceiver Technology is Used by World Class Startups in Wireless Applications

iPHY features smallest area, lowest power USB 2.0 PHY core for consumer electronics

Choosing iPhy from Innovative ensures Frontier Silicon and Ubicom rapid time to market, proven compatibility and superior performance for USB2.0 On-The-Go enabled devices
 
Sunnyvale, CA - October 3, 2005 - Innovative Semiconductors, Inc. (Innovative), the premier supplier of USB PHY and controller logic today announced that its third generation USB 2.0 OTG PHY technology has been licensed by Frontier-Silicon and Ubicom, Inc. The iPhy technology will be used in chips manufactured using 0.13u TSMC process.  Frontier Silicon is the leading fabless manufacturer of semiconductors for mobile digital television (MDTV) and DAB digital radio products. Ubicom is the leading supplier of communication processors and software platforms that address the needs of the rapidly evolving digital home and small office.

"In order for our customers to deliver compelling consumer electronics devices to market quickly, we employ leading-edge technologies," said Martin Jackson, Chief Technology Officer at Frontier Silicon. "The significantly small footprint, low power and proven silicon of the Innovative iPhy was particularly important to us"

"Innovative provided us with excellent support. They understand very well the System-on-Chip (SOC) challenges of integrating analog blocks. Their engineers responded quickly to our requests whenever we needed support. This was crucial to meeting our schedule milestones" Martin added.

"After in-depth evaluation of the available USB 2.0 PHY transceivers from the few vendors that have proven certified silicon technology," said Darrell Burns, Vice President of Engineering at Ubicom. "We selected Innovative's iPhy because of its maturity, small area and low power"

"We were very impressed by the quality and the quick response provided by their engineers." Burns added.

"Our iPHY technology is mature, robust and certified. It is found in tens of millions of chips today, and we continue to improve our technology to enable consumer electronics manufacturers to go to market with superior performing products quickly and easily," said Nabil Takla, president and CEO for Innovative.  "We consider the quality and speed of our support to our customers to be as important as the robustness and maturity of our technology."

iPhy Small, Low Power, Certified

Innovative achieved compliance of its first generation USB technology in March 2002. The first generation products supported the USB Transceiver Macrocell Interface (UTMI) specifications for USB 2.0 devices and the Innovative engineers designed a USB 2.0 PHY Host interface since the UTMI+ Specification was not available then.

The company introduced the second generation technology in September of 2002. The second generation supported UTMI+ OTG specification and integrated board components to reduce board component count and achieve small form factor. Innovative USB 2.0 OTG was certified by the USB-IF.

Innovative third generation iPhy is smaller in area by about 30% compared to the second generation and lower in power by approximately 30%. Most of the competing products are comparable in area and power to Innovative second generation.

Freescale (Launched by Motorola), LSI Logic and National Semiconductor licensed Innovative USB 2.0 OTG PHY. Manufacturers have a competitive edge when using Innovative USB 2.0 iPhy and controller logic. Getting the PHY and Link from a single source reduces risk and development time. It frees up internal engineering resources to focus on designing more differentiating product features.  

With the low cost, high-performance and low-power requirements of today's USB OTG solutions, future markets such as cell phones and digital cameras make the need for consistent and reliable communication between devices an essential element of technology development. USB currently has an installed base of more than one billion ports with an additional 2.5 billion interfaces forecasted by In-stat to ship by 2006.  

About Frontier Silicon - The Mobile Digital TV and Digital Radio Experts

Frontier Silicon is an award-winning company at the forefront of the digital multimedia revolution with a range of semiconductor solutions for mobile digital television, digital TV and digital radio.

The company develops and delivers both the broadcast signal receiver modules and digital processing circuits as individual chips and complete system modules to leading consumer electronics and mobile phone brands.

As a fabless semiconductor business, Frontier Silicon's core products include complete DAB modules, DVB-T solutions, DMB (digital multimedia broadcasting) solutions, and the underlying system-on-chip (SoC) devices and receiver chips.

Key customers for the company's products include consumer electronic, automotive entertainment and PDA/mobile phone manufacturers such as Bang & Olufsen, Cambridge Audio, Goodmans, Grundig, Hitachi, Ministry of Sound, Philips, PURE Digital, Roberts Radio, Samsung, Sharp, Sony and TEAC. Frontier Silicon has won a number of awards and its products have also enabled award-winning consumer products. The company's awards include the Fabless Semiconductor Association's start-up to watch award, PricewaterhouseCoopers hottest technology company of 2004 award, the World Economic Forum's technology pioneers to watch 2005, and the Tornado T100 award for one of the best-performing and innovative high-tech private companies. For more information visit www.frontier-silicon.com

About Ubicom - The Communication Processor Experts

Ubicom, Inc. is a leading supplier of communication processor and software platforms that address the needs of the rapidly evolving digital home and small office. Ubicom's StreamEngine technology enables innovative, high quality, high performance wired & wireless networking products & services for broadband applications.

The company provides optimized system-level solutions to OEMs for a wide range of products that deliver consistent quality for real time interactive applications such as VoIP, video, audio & online gaming combined with exceptional coverage in wireless applications. The company's technology is deployed in a variety of areas including wireless routers, access points, VoIP gateways, streaming media devices, print servers and other network devices.

Ubicom's unique multithreaded processor design, real-time operating system, and application-level solutions combine to ensure a high-quality user experience with fast time to market for our customers. Ubicom is a venture-backed, privately held company with corporate headquarters in Mountain View, California. For more information, visit www.ubicom.com.

About Innovative Semiconductor - The USB Experts
Innovative is a leading supplier for fully compliant and certified USB 2.0 (device, host and OTG), IEEE-1394 PHY and Link Controllers, and Video Compression technologies.

Innovative's devices are utilized in a variety of applications including PCs, PC peripherals, Internet appliances, set top boxes and satellites. Licensed clients include a wide array of high-tech companies, including Agilent, Conexant, Creative Technology, eSilicon, Evans & Sutherland, Freescale (launched by Motorola), Honeywell,
IBM, Infineon, LSI Logic, Mentor Graphics, Micron, Mitel, Motorola, NASA, National Semiconductor, nVidia, OKI, PortalPlayer, S3, Samsung, Siemens, ST, Trident Microsystems and Tvia.

Innovative is an active participant in industry organizations and associations such as USB-IF www.usb.org  and ULPI WG www.ulpi.org . For more information please visit Innovative: www.innovative-semi.com