Toshiba and Sonics Team to Optimize SMART Interconnect IP Products for Toshiba's Consumer-Oriented Semiconductor ASIC Process Technology

Mountain View, Calif. — January 26, 2004 — Sonics, Inc., a leading provider of SOC (system-on-chip) architectures and SMART Interconnect IP products for consumer electronics, announced today that Toshiba Corporation and Sonics have expanded their business relationship with a joint technology collaboration. The agreement extends the Sonics and Toshiba corporate-wide contract announced in 2003 to include collaboration on consumer electronics SOC IP solutions. The previous agreement enabled Toshiba to use Sonics SMART Interconnect IP corporate-wide as an interconnect technology in Toshiba SOCs. The new agreement calls for Sonics to collaborate with Toshiba to optimize Sonics IP for Toshiba’s advanced consumer SOCs using its 90 nanometer and smaller process technologies. The joint team will also create new IP and tools tailored to streamline the SOC/ASIC design and development process for Toshiba customers. In addition to the joint technology collaboration, Toshiba has also made an investment in privately-held Sonics.

Sonics proven products included in the corporate-wide agreement are the SiliconBackplane™ MicroNetwork and Sonics 3220 (S3220) SMART Interconnect IP and MemMax™ Memory Scheduler. SiliconBackplane SMART Interconnect IP connects complex IP blocks such as processors, DSP engines, MPEG encoder/decoders, DMA engines or packet processors to other on-chip resources. The MemMax™ Memory Scheduler IP optimizes memory access to off-chip memory resources. MemMax improves DRAM utilization while reducing SOC die size. The S3220 SMART Interconnect IP provides low latency non-blocking access between initiator (usually host) IP cores and a large number of physically dispersed target (usually peripheral I/O) IP cores. Sonics SMART Interconnect IP speeds SOC development while improving performance, lowering development costs, reducing design time, and improving design reusability.

The collaboration agreement defines the development of new System C design models, the creation of tailored, application-optimized versions of Sonics IP, and the development of new design tools to assist Toshiba design teams in converting legacy IP to be compatible with OCP and SMART Interconnect IP. These efforts will enable Toshiba customers to accelerate the design and implementation of complex SOCs for consumer applications in the advanced 90 and 65 nanometer Toshiba process technologies.

“We are pleased that Toshiba, an innovative global consumer market leader, has recognized our expertise in consumer SOC development and has chosen to collaborate with us,” said Grant Pierce, president and CEO of Sonics, Inc. “Toshiba is one of the world leaders in consumer electronics and possesses one of the world’s most advanced semiconductor process manufacturing technologies. We want to help them utilize Sonics IP as their standard SOC interconnect technology. Today, Toshiba’s customers for consumer SOCs are compelled by market demands to produce ever more complex and feature-rich product families and to produce them faster than ever before. This new collaboration will assist Toshiba in meeting its customers’ requirements for speeding the development of multi-million gate designs today and into the future.”

“This agreement will enable Toshiba to develop advanced next-generation SOCs quickly and will promote the reusability of IP across multiple design teams and even business divisions,” said MR. Takashi Yoshimori, Technology Executive, Semiconductor Company, Toshiba Corporation. “As we move from our market-leading 90-nanometer production capabilities to next generation 65-nanometer process technologies, Sonics IP will help us develop feature-rich, high-volume SOCs that will fuel future market growth.”

“Collaboration with Toshiba is part of our commitment to provide a complete solution for the consumer electronics SOC market and to establish Sonics IP as an enabling technology for developing state-of-the-art SOCs,” notes David P. Lautzenheiser, Vice President of Marketing at Sonics. “They have some of the world’s largest and most advanced fabrication facilities and a large and diverse legacy IP portfolio. We have silicon proven products that enable them to leverage that IP portfolio quickly, predictably and cost-effectively in designing consumer electronics SOCs. It makes sense for us to work together to optimize our technology, their IP portfolio and design methods for their sub-100 nanometer process technologies.”

About Sonics, Inc.
Sonics, Inc. is a leading provider of SOC architectures and SMART Interconnect Intellectual Property (IP) that accelerate the development of complex SOCs, reduce development costs and increase the reusability of IP. Major semiconductor and systems companies including Broadcom, Samsung, Texas Instruments and Toshiba have applied Sonics architectures, IP products and methodologies in SOCs used in leading products in the wireless, digital consumer and communications markets. Sonics customers have experienced dramatic reduction in time to market, from years to months, while enjoying savings in design and manufacturing costs. Sonics is a privately held company funded by Investar Capital, Smart Technology Ventures, TL Ventures, Easton Hunt Capital, JAFCO Ventures,†and H&Q Asia-Pacific. For more information, see www.sonicsinc.com.