Toshiba Appoints Three New Vice Presidents in the System LSI Group

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- July 18, 2006 -- Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC)* today announced the appointment of three new vice presidents in the System LSI Group. Takeshi Iwamoto has been named to the position of vice president, Custom SoC and Foundry Business Unit; he reports to Hideya Yamaguchi, senior vice president of the System LSI Group. Also reporting to Mr. Yamaguchi, Atsushi Watanabe joins TAEC as vice president of the Design Solutions Group. Concurrently, Eiichi Asai has been appointed to the position of vice president of engineering, Design Centers; he reports to Mr. Iwamoto.

Mr. Iwamoto is responsible for overseeing the Custom SoC and Foundry Business Unit, including leading all business marketing and development activities. The experienced executive has been with Toshiba Corporation since 1989 and held numerous management positions of increasing responsibility. He has extensive overseas marketing experience, including 14 years spent in Europe.

"My mission is to strengthen our custom SoC business, including further development of our foundry business with strategic customers," said Mr. Iwamoto. "We realize that customers have a wide number of choices available for custom SoCs. However, we believe that TAEC offers a very attractive solution with a value proposition comprised of advanced process technology, a rich IP portfolio including storage IP and eDRAM, advanced package options and system-level design know-how that's an outgrowth of Toshiba's consumer background."

Before joining TAEC, Mr. Iwamoto served as an assistant vice president at Toshiba Electronics Europe (TEE) with responsibility for semi-custom LSI marketing and the European LSI Design Center. Prior to that, he held the position of senior manager of the Cell Development Group at TEE where he was responsible for development of high-speed I/O IP. Before that, he was responsible for semi-custom LSI promotion and management of product development at TEE. He earned a master's degree in electronics engineering from Waseda University.

As vice president of the Design Solutions Group, Mr. Watanabe is responsible for providing design platforms, including EDA design environments and IP, in support of TAEC chip design activity. He explained that his mission is to provide best-in-class design platforms to assure that TAEC meets its customers' requirements to the fullest extent. He has worked in EDA at Toshiba Corporation for over 20 years and has developed specific design tools and overall design environments for all of the major product categories handled by TAEC. His expertise includes both Toshiba EDA and third-party EDA tools; he has considerable experience in working with third-party EDA vendors. Prior to joining TAEC, he held the position of manager at Toshiba Semiconductor where he carried out various assignments, including advanced technology development and support of design-for-manufacturing and low-power technologies. He holds a master's degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Sophia University.

As vice president of engineering, Design Centers, Mr. Asai is responsible for custom SoC development for the Custom SoC and Foundry Business Unit. He has worked in IC design, development and planning throughout the course of his 19-year career with Toshiba Corporation. Most recently, he held the position of chief specialist with responsibility for managing the ASIC development process at Toshiba Semiconductor. Prior to that, he was responsible for the design and development of RISC microprocessors as well as product planning where he designed different RISC microprocessors for specific applications in various ASICs. Before that, he developed CISC microprocessors. He holds a bachelor's degree from Tokyo University.

About TAEC

Combining quality and flexibility with design engineering expertise, TAEC brings a breadth of advanced, next-generation technologies to its customers. This broad offering includes memory and flash memory-based storage solutions, a broad range of discrete devices, displays, medical tubes, ASICs, custom SoCs, microprocessors, microcontrollers and wireless components for the computing, wireless, networking, automotive and digital consumer markets.

TAEC is an independent operating company owned by Toshiba America, Inc., a subsidiary of Toshiba Corp. (Toshiba), Japan's largest semiconductor manufacturer and the world's fourth largest semiconductor manufacturer. In more than 130 years of operation, Toshiba has recorded numerous firsts and made many valuable contributions to technology and society. For additional company and product information, please visit TAEC's website at chips.toshiba.com. For technical inquiries, please e-mail Tech.Questions@taec.toshiba.com.