Ambric, Inc. Adds Industry Veterans to its Start-up Team; New Fabless Semiconductor Company Adds VP of Architecture and Director of IP

PORTLAND, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 13, 2004 -- Ambric(TM), Inc., a new fabless semiconductor company, announced it has added two industry veterans to its team. Mike Butts, vice president of architecture, brings deep IC architecture expertise to the design team; and Kevin Ross, director of intellectual property (IP), brings a combination of technical and patent law expertise to the company. Ambric is developing a new type of programmable IC platform that will help electronics companies accelerate time to market for their products while also slashing chip development costs. Recently, the company announced it had completed a $10.4 million Series A funding round.

"I am very pleased that we have been able to attract key contributors of this caliber to Ambric," said Jay Eisenlohr, president and CEO of Ambric. "Mike Butts, a pioneer of the hardware logic emulation industry, brings his deep expertise in reconfigurable hardware system architecture and design. Mike's contributions will be invaluable in ensuring that Ambric's first products will be as advanced and comprehensive as possible."

Continued Eisenlohr, "It's very unusual for a start-up to have in-house patent counsel so early in its life, but we needed an early start on harnessing our large volume of fundamental and revolutionary intellectual capital. And we couldn't pass up such an exceptional talent. Not only is Kevin a senior patent attorney, he also has a strong background in both computer science and electrical engineering. He will lead a comprehensive program to turn our intellectual capital into a growing base of IP assets."

About Mike Butts

Butts comes to Ambric from a programmable IC platform company that he co-founded. He has a rich background in architecting large-scale reconfigurable hardware. In the 1980s, he co-invented hardware logic emulation using reconfigurable hardware -- technology that has developed into a $100 million per year market. Butts developed a number of reconfigurable chips and system products in his twenty-year career in the electronic design automation industry, including stints at Mentor Graphics Corporation, Quickturn Design Systems, Synopsys, Inc., and Cadence Design Systems, where he was a Cadence Fellow. Butts' roots are in advanced computer architecture, which he further developed while at Floating Point Systems, Beaverton, Ore. He holds a B.S. and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from M.I.T.

About Kevin Ross

Ross is a patent attorney and was most recently a partner at Marger Johnson & McCollom, P.C., a Portland, Ore.-based intellectual property law firm that continues to provide IP counsel to Ambric. Ross formerly practiced law at a large patent firm in Seattle, Wash., and in Milan, Italy as a U.S. patent law specialist. Before practicing law he was an application computer programmer. Ross holds an undergraduate degree in Computer Science from Westminster College, Fulton, Mo. He completed graduate studies in Electrical Engineering and received his law degree, both from the University of Missouri, Columbia.

About Ambric, Inc.

Ambric, Inc. is a privately held fabless semiconductor company developing a new type of programmable IC platform that will help electronics companies accelerate time to market for their products while also slashing chip development costs. Founded in 2003, Ambric is headquartered in Beaverton, Ore. For more information, visit www.ambric.com.

Note: Ambric, Inc. and the Ambric logo are trademarks of Ambric, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.