Mindspeed and CEVA Collaborate to Bring Software-Defined Radio Technology to LTE Wireless Infrastructure Market

Mindspeed Incorporates CEVA-XC323 Communication Processor into its Next-Generation Transcede™ eNodeB Solutions for Wireless Base Stations

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Feb. 8, 2011  -- CEVA, Inc. [(Nasdaq: CEVA); (LSE: CVA)], the leading licensor of silicon intellectual property (SIP) platform solutions and DSP cores, and Mindspeed Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: MSPD), a leading supplier of semiconductor solutions for network infrastructure applications, announced today that the two companies are collaborating to bring the benefits of software-defined radio (SDR) technology to wireless infrastructure equipment. Mindspeed has selected the CEVA-XC323 communication processor to further improve the performance and flexibility of its Transcede™ 4G wireless baseband solutions.

Mindspeed's current generation of Transcede 3G/4G wireless solutions utilizes the CEVA-X1641 DSP to deliver a high-performance, multi-core platform that offers the wireless industry a superior, cost-efficient processor alternative to incumbent infrastructure VLIW DSPs, such as those offered by Texas Instruments. By upgrading to the CEVA-XC323 DSP, Mindspeed enables Transcede customers to apply software-defined radio technologies to improve performance, flexibility and time-to-market for their infrastructure processor designs, while maintaining full software compatibility with previous Transcede designs.

The CEVA-XC323 is scalable to address the complete range of cell site solutions required by network operators, including femtocells, picocells, microcells and macrocells. Its flexible architecture provides efficient support for both legacy and next-generation wireless standards such as WCDMA, HSPA, WiMAX, LTE and LTE-A. In addition, the core incorporates extensive support for wireless infrastructure control plane processing, typically handled by separate processors.

"The CEVA-XC323 delivers a new level of performance, flexibility and scalability for our wireless infrastructure SoC designs, while maintaining software compatibility with our current generation Transcede product line," said Alan Taylor, director of marketing for the communications convergence processing business unit at Mindspeed. "Leveraging additional features, including dynamic power scaling, control plane processing and extensive multi-core support further enhances our ability to deliver truly innovative solutions for our next generation of CEVA-powered solutions."

Eran Briman, vice president of marketing at CEVA commented, "As one of our lead customers for our state-of–the-art CEVA-XC323 communication processor, Mindspeed continues its leadership by embracing the benefits that it offers for wireless baseband SoC design. The software-defined radio capabilities will improve performance, flexibility and time-to-market for their infrastructure solutions, while C-level programming, backward compatibility to previous Transcede designs and full support for TI's intrinsic functions will reduce overall investment in software development and maintenance. We are pleased to continue our collaboration with them to deliver more powerful, cost-efficient 4G processor solutions for the wireless industry."

A new class of high-performance silicon, Mindspeed®'s Transcede family of SoCs can deliver three sectors of LTE processing in a single device and enables the first 64-user "picocell on a chip." At the same time, it provides substantial processing headroom using a modular software approach that allows manufacturers to incorporate their own proprietary, value-added features to a standard eNodeB implementation, such as network listening for base station self-optimization and auto-configuration. The solution uses an innovative, task-based hardware architecture model that enables software developed on one Transcede device to be ported to other products within the Transcede family across the full range of system platforms, including enterprise femtocell, picocell (indoor and outdoor), microcell and macrocell base stations.

The Transcede 4000 processor was named 2010's "Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough" at the Mobile Excellence Awards (MEA) in December 2010.  Mindspeed will be hosting meetings and demonstrations for service providers, customers, press and analysts at the 2011 Mobile World Congress in booth 2H57 ( Hall 2) of the Fira de Barcelona-Montjuic in Barcelona, Spain February 14-17, 2011. CEVA's booth is located at 1F33 in Hall 1.

CEVA's industry-leading DSP cores power many of the world's leading wireless semiconductors, enabling unrivalled power consumption, performance and cost efficiencies in 2G / 3G / 4G solutions. The Company's wireless customer base includes Mindspeed, Broadcom, Intel, Samsung, Spreadtrum, ST-Ericsson and VIA Telecom. CEVA has more than 35 design wins for cellular baseband processors targeting a wide range of handset, mobile broadband and wireless infrastructure applications. To date, more than 1 billion CEVA-powered cellular baseband processors have shipped.

Microprocessor Report Analysis of CEVA-XC323

The Microprocessor Report, widely recognized as an authority in processor technologies, recently published an in-depth technical analysis of the CEVA-XC323 communication processor. To download this report, please visit www.ceva-dsp.com/mpr.

About Mindspeed Technologies

Mindspeed designs, develops and sells semiconductor solutions for communications applications in the wireline and wireless network infrastructure, which includes enterprise networks, broadband access networks (fixed and mobile), and metropolitan and wide area networks. We have organized our solutions for these interrelated and rapidly converging networks into three families. Our communications convergence processing (CCP) products include ultra-low-power, multi-core digital signal processor (DSP) system-on-chip (SoC) products for the fixed and mobile (3G/4G/LTE) carrier infrastructure and residential and enterprise service platforms. Our high-performance analog (HPA) products solve difficult switching, timing and synchronization challenges in next-generation optical networking, enterprise storage and broadcast video transmission applications. Our wide area networking (WAN) communications portfolio helps optimize today's circuit-switched networks. Mindspeed's products are sold to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for use in a variety of network infrastructure equipment which serves these markets. To learn more, please visit www.mindspeed.com.

About CEVA

CEVA is the world's leading licensor of silicon intellectual property (SIP) DSP cores and platform solutions for the mobile handset, portable and consumer electronics markets. CEVA's IP portfolio includes comprehensive technologies for cellular baseband (2G / 3G / 4G), multimedia, HD video and audio, voice over packet (VoP), Bluetooth, Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) and Serial ATA (SATA). In 2010, CEVA's IP was shipped in over 600 million devices, powering handsets from 7 out of the top 8 handset OEMs, including Nokia, Samsung, LG, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and ZTE. Today, more than one in every three handsets shipped worldwide is powered by a CEVA DSP core. For more information, visit www.ceva-dsp.com.