IC Nexus and MCE Bring 90nm and Finer Nodes ASIC Services for Hand Held Devices to UK and Ireland Markets

October 27, 2006 -- In order to meet the demanding performance requirements of hand-held devices, electronic designers need to gain access to the latest semiconductor foundry technologies. IC Nexus and MCE have established a tight partnership to enable U.K. and Ireland based design engineers to take advantage of Fujitsu’s sub-100 nanometre (nm) processes for the design of low cost, low power and low leakage ASICs for hand-held devices.

The demands on the performance of electronic components for handheld consumer devices (e.g. cell phones, PDAs, GPS systems, audio/video players), industrial products (e.g. monitoring, paging and communication systems) and medical systems (e.g. blood pressure monitors) require a combination of increased functionality, reduced power consumption (extended battery life) and compactness. The semiconductor industry is responding to these demands by reducing the process geometry.

IC Nexus, in recognition of this requirement, has teamed with MCE, a UK company specialising in design and manufacture of ASICs and MCMs to explore this growing area of interest for high performance ASICs in the UK and Ireland markets. Through the close partnership with MCE, IC Nexus is able to offer UK and Ireland clients access to Fujitsu’s state-of-the-art 90nm CMOS process. This process, and the 65 nm one which is in development, are ideally suited to this market, having extremely low current leakage capabilities.

IC Nexus and MCE will support the design engineer at every stage in the process of specifying, prototyping and final production of the sub 100nm ASICs, based on its unparalleled experience of design and manufacture of ASICs.

About IC Nexus

IC Nexus is a leading fabless ASIC design & manufacturing services company, providing RTL to ASIC design services and silicon fabrication service. The Company is headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan and credits its success to a strong technological base, a competent and qualified workforce, and a highly trained, strategically distributed support network. Website www.icnexus.com.

About MCE

MCE is a leading supplier of high reliability electronics for aerospace, industrial, telecommunications, computer and medical applications. The company specialises in the design and manufacture of ASICs and MCMs (multi-chip modules) and offers flexible design interface and foundry-independent silicon sourcing. MCE is part of Smiths Aerospace. Website www.micro-circuit.com.