eSilicon to acquire Silicon Design Solutions

eSilicon to acquire 200 person organization with engineering centers of excellence in Asia

SUNNYVALE Calif. – April 8, 2010 –eSilicon Corporation, the largest independent semiconductor Value Chain Producer (VCP), today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire substantially all the assets of Silicon Design Solutions (SDS), a privately held supplier of niche semiconductor memory intellectual property (IP) cores. SDS is headquartered in Milpitas, California and has design centers in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Da Nang City, Vietnam and Richardson, Texas.

Through the acquisition of SDS, eSilicon plans to expand its customer base and potential for design wins. eSilicon established an engineering center of excellence in Romania five years ago through an acquisition which has greatly benefited eSilicon and its customer-base in Europe and Israel.

“The acquisition of SDS will provide new revenue opportunities for eSilicon, supporting our growth plans, while bringing expanded design and operations engineering support to our customers,” said Jack Harding, Chairman, President and CEO of eSilicon Corporation.  “As the leading VCP, we are committed to leadership in all aspects of our product offering enabling us to create complex semiconductor ASICs and SoCs for our customers.”

“Over the past several years, we have established a loyal top-tier customer base by leveraging our talented engineering group and specialized memory IP not available from other suppliers,” said Duytan Tran, SDS president and CEO. “By combining forces with the world’s largest independent VCP, we look forward to providing a deeper and broader level of support to our current customers while extending our products and services to eSilicon’s large customer base.”

 “As a VCP, eSilicon plays an important role in helping its customers, both fabless semiconductor companies and system OEMs, develop complex, high-volume ASICs and SoCs,” said Rich Wawrzyniak, Semico Senior Analyst. “The acquisition of SDS is a smart business decision and will provide differentiation for both eSilicon and its customers with unique, proven niche IP and additional design services.”

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, and eSilicon expects the transaction to close in May 2010.

About Value Chain Producer A Value Chain Producer (VCP) is a company that collaborates with foundries, IP and service providers, EDA suppliers, package, assembly and test operations in designing and producing chips for fabless IC, IDM and OEM companies. VCPs optimize the economics of customer value chains and enable customers to focus on their product differentiation and market growth.  A VCP earns revenue by shipping packaged, tested products with the customers’ logo.  The term was created by eSilicon and was adopted by the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA) as a new category in October 2009.

About eSilicon

eSilicon, a pioneering semiconductor Value Chain Producer (VCP), provides a comprehensive suite of design, productization and manufacturing services, enabling a flexible, low-cost, lower-risk path to volume chip production. The company delivers application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) to system original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and fabless semiconductor companies who serve a wide variety of markets including the consumer, computer, communications and industrial segments. eSilicon - Enabling Your Silicon Success™. For more information, please visit www.esilicon.com.