Faraday's UR-IP Center Begins Operations; Afatech, CAT, and SMedia Join as Core Members

Hsinchu, Taiwan -- July 10, 2007 --  Faraday Technology Corporation, a leading silicon IP and fabless ASIC vendor, today announced the initiation of UR-IP Center™ (Your IP Center) with Afa Technologies Inc (Afatech), Chip Advanced Technology (CAT), and SMedia Technology Corporation joining as core members to provide high value-added mixed-signal IPs such as DVB demodulators, HDMI, and 3D/2D graphic accelerators, etc… The purpose of Faraday' UR-IP Center is to unite the competitive, high-end , and silicon proven IP portfolios from small-to-mid-size fabless design companies and take advantage of Faraday's well-established sales networks to market these IPs to large fabless semiconductor companies and IDMs around the world. Through this cooperative effort, Faraday will be able to fully utilize the shared resources, expand IP business, and strengthen the leading position in the IC design industry.

The impetus behind the creation of the UR-IP Center came from Faraday's realization that oftentimes, customers spend a great amount of time and effort searching for suitable yet also competitive IPs. Even after finding the right IPs, customers may run into technical problems, such as compatibility issues. Through the UR-IP Center, these issues shall be resolved by by assembling the best and silicon-proven IPs from member companies and improving the current IP supply chain.

Concerning the roadmap of UR-IP Center, Faraday expresses that it intends to set the expansion of process-related interface IPs as its priority; will also focus on mixed-signal IPs as well as the clock and data conversion IPs. Additionally, because of the growing importance of digital IPs that involve data compression and hardware acceleration, the UR-IP Center also plans to import higher performance IPs to provide the most complete IP offerings. As for CPUs, the UR-IP Center will integrate the easy-to-use, high-speed hardcore IPs developed in specific foundry processes. This will largely decrease customers' time and effort to enhance CPU performance.

"A complete, efficient, and professional IP supply environment is the key to customers' SoC project success. In the past, the industry lacked the resource integration and sharing platform, but now, with the UR-IP Center and more members' participation, we can optimize the use of resources, and thus reduce customers' design cost and time-to-market," said H.S. Wang, Vice President of IP Business and Technology at Faraday.

"We have worked with Faraday before on mobile TV related projects, and we have the highest regard for the IP technology and service that Faraday provides," said Dr. Allen Lu, President of Afatech. "Based on past success, we have high confidence in Faraday and the UR-IP Center, and we hope the partnership will benefit us in both business and in technology development."

"To CAT, our expertise in analog IPs has already been affirmed by the market. Through the UR-IP Center, we hope to expand our market channels and introduce more customers to our interface related IPs, while also enhancing the interoperability of our IPs. We expect that after more customers have used our IPs, CAT's digital television IPs will become the interoperability testing standard in the industry," said Dr. Hung-Chih Liu, President of Chip Advanced Technology (CAT), a well-established provider of HDTV IC solutions.

"SMedia is currently a strong force behind the research and development of portable multimedia IC," said Paul Huang, President of SMedia. "The competition in portable multimedia market is getting more intensive every year, and IP integration levels are getting higher and higher. While SMedia already has specialized 2D/3D graphics acceleration technology, we still have to work hard to actively meet future IP integration demands. By joining Faraday's UR-IP Center, we can benefit from the comprehensive IP development environment to speed up our SoC development."

The UR-IP Center will not only establish a competitive IP supply environment, but also help its members and customers to cooperate on future large-scale SoC projects. For more information regarding Faraday's UR-IP Center, please visit the Faraday website at http://www.faraday-tech.com/ .

About Afa Technologies, Inc.

Founded in October 2002, Afa Technologies Inc (Afatech) is a fabless IC design company that specializes in the research, development, production, and sales of telecommunication and network ICs. The Afatech team is comprised of managers and engineers from both the Silicon Valley and Taiwan. Afatech initially focused on the development of network ICs before becoming an important solution provider for OEM and ODM customers in Taiwan. They continue to provide top-of-the-line SoC, DSP, and analog circuit technology as well as high-speed, highly integrated products for the household consumer market.

About Chip Advanced Technology Incorporated

Founded in November 2003, Chip Advanced Technology Inc. (CAT) is comprised of a team of IC engineers and designers with over ten years of experience in the IC industry. CAT specializes in analog ICs for power management and video interface solutions. They have already developed a lineup of products to meet a wide range of needs, such as the multi-channel DC regulator for all system powers. CAT also offers a wide range of multimedia solutions, such as HDMI and ADC.

About SMedia Technology Corporation

SMedia Technology Corporation (SMedia) is the first IC design company in Asia to possess comprehensive low-power multimedia process technology in mobile graphics. Originally a part of the Silicon Integrated Systems Corporation (SiS), SMedia was founded in September of 2004, with a focus on developing mobile multimedia coprocessors for handheld devices. Now, they have already developed products for image acceleration, image processing, video compression, and audio technology. SMedia is the first IC design company in Taiwan with the most complete design capability for graphics, video, audio, and imaging-related low-power multimedia development.

About Faraday Technology Corporation

Faraday Technology Corporation is a leading silicon IP and fabless ASIC vendor. The company's broad silicon IP portfolio includes 32-bit RISC CPUs, DSPs, MPEG4, H.264, PHYs/Controllers for USB 2.0, Ethe rnet, Serial ATA, PCI Express, Cell Library and Memory Compiler. With more than 700 employees and 2006 revenue of US$171 million, Faraday is one of the largest fabless ASIC companies in the Asia-Pacific region, and it also has a significant presence in other world-wide markets. Headquartered in Taiwan , Faraday has service and support offices around the world, including the U.S. , Japan , Europe, and China . For more information, please visit: www.faraday-tech.com .

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