Helion Technology supports new Xilinx Spartan-3 plaftorm with encryption IP to penetrate high volume security applications

Company announces membership in AllianceCORE program and support for SignOnce IP License

CAMBRIDGE, UK, April 15, 2003 -- Helion Technology Limited, an established provider of electronic data security IP and associated services, today announced support of the new Spartan-3 platform FPGAs from Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX), announced April 14, 2003. Helion has ported two families of its Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) cores, including building blocks for encryption, decryption and key expansion to Xilinx's new Spartan- 3 platform as well as the Virtex-II family of FPGAs. Target applications for these functions include security in wired and wireless communications, wireless LAN, storage area networks (SAN), voice over IP (VoIP), telemetry and remote monitoring applications.

"Our security cores use thirty to fifty percent fewer FPGA resources than competing solutions," said Graeme Durant, Helion CEO. "Combined with the industry-leading price points enabled by the Spartan-3 platform, they provide a potent combination that is unmatched by solutions based on any competing FPGA architecture. It also goes head-on with ASIC and standard-product based implementations. This will open whole new markets for us in highvolume applications that want FPGA flexibility at ASIC price points."

"We enjoy working with companies such as Helion who invest the time to optimize their IP to the Xilinx architecture," said Babak Hedayati, senior director of Product Solutions Marketing at Xilinx. "Their solutions are ideal to meet the ever broadening demand for data security solutions. We also welcome them as one of the newest members of our AllianceCORE 3rd-party IP program."

The AES cores are available from Helion to support Spartan-3 FPGAs today. List pricing for Xilinx-optimized netlists starts at $9995. Contact Helion for more information. Helion has also joined the Common License Consortium, supporting the SignOnce IP License, the industry's first multi-vendor common license agreement for FPGA-based IP. See www.xilinx.com/ipcenter/signonce for more details.

Spartan-3 Platform FPGAs
Ranging from 50K to 5M system gates, the 90nm Spartan-3 platform is the world's lowest-cost FPGA with unrivaled price points to address customer demand for low-cost solutions. With Spartan-3, Xilinx is poised to address entirely new high-volume applications in the "sweet spot" of mid-range ASICs - such as low cost routers, storage servers, medical and industrial imaging, and residential gateways - to significantly expand the total available market for the Spartan Series. For complete information about Spartan-3 FPGAs, visit http://www.xilinx.com/spartan3/.

About Helion
Established over ten years ago, Helion are a small British company based in Cambridge, England, offering a range of product proven Data Security silicon IP cores and expert DSP algorithm development consultancy, all backed up by highly experienced and professional design service capabilities. Specializing in pushing FPGA technology right to its limits, Helion IP cores are designed to be the smallest, fastest and most power efficient solutions available for use with programmable logic. For more detailed information on Helion and its products and services, please visit the Helion website at www.heliontech.com.

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