IPextreme to Sell Cypress Semiconductor's USB 2.0 Low-Power Hub IP

Campbell, Calif. November 8, 2006 – IPextreme Inc, a semiconductor technology licensing company, and Cypress Semiconductor Corp. (NYSE: CY) have signed an agreement where IPextreme will sell and support Cypress’ well-proven USB 2.0 high speed hub intellectual property (IP) into third-party system chips.  Cypress’ USB hub IP complements IPextreme’s impressive portfolio of networking, audio/video processing and embedded processor IP for the consumer and automotive electronics markets.

“The market for USB is huge, and we are clearly the market share leader in standalone solutions,” said Scott Harmel, vice president of marketing for Cypress’ Consumer and Computation Division. “Demand for integrating USB 2.0 hub functionality into system chips is also growing, and IPextreme has the expertise to help customers quickly and efficiently integrate our IP into their products.”

USB hubs enable several USB devices to connect to the host through a single port. Hubs are commonly embedded into laptop motherboards, monitors, keyboards and other personal computer peripherals, in addition to standalone products. Almost all consumer electronics products, including digital cameras, GPS navigation units, printers, digital music players and cell phones now have USB interfaces, which increases demand for hubs that allow simultaneous connectivity of multiple peripherals. Integrating USB hub functionality into a system chip reduces system cost, power consumption, size and failure points.

USB hubs often connect a mix of high-speed USB 2.0 and low-speed USB 1.1 devices.  Transaction translators enable the hub to operate at the fastest speed available for each connected device. IPextreme’s IP product version of Cypress’ USB 2.0 hub design, called the USB20Hub, is configurable to accommodate from two to seven ports. Customers can choose one transaction translator for all ports to minimize production cost, or one transaction translator per port to maximize throughput. The USB20Hub design has very low power consumption and runs easily on USB bus power. Once implemented, the USB20Hub has externally configurable options such as the number of active ports, power management, port indicators and remote wake-up. The USB20Hub IP core is fully synthesizable and comes packaged in an IPextreme XPack to maximize ease of integration through a simple IP configuration user interface with support for common EDA tools. The USB20Hub IP subsystem has been proven in many Cypress EZ-USB® hub chips and has received USB-IF compliance certification.The USB20Hub IP core is available now from IPextreme; contact IPextreme for pricing.

Cypress used this same IP in the recently introduced EZ-USB®HX2LP controller, one of the lowest power hub controllers in the market.  EZ-USB® HX2LP is optimized for cost-sensitive applications including standalone hubs, monitors, docking stations, keyboards, motherboards and more. The device is USB-IF and Windows® Hardware-quality lab (WHQL)-compliant and is available in four-port (CY7C65630-56LFXC) and two-port (CY7C65620-56LFXC) variants. They integrate many external passive components, such as pull-up and pull-down resistors, along with gang port power control to reduce the overall bill-of-materials required to implement a hub design.

“It is very exciting to commercialize Cypress’ market-leading USB IP,” noted Warren Savage, IPextreme CEO. “Though USB IP is common, USB 2.0 Hub IP cores are hard to find, and we are happy to offer this differentiated and silicon-validated technology to a broader market.”

About IPextreme Inc.

IPextreme brings high-value intellectual property (IP) from large semiconductor companies to consumer and automotive System-on-Chip (SOC) designers worldwide. These products are silicon proven to minimize design risk and provided in a process independent and EDA neutral format, for easy use by the broadest range of customers. With a decade of experience in developing, packaging, licensing and supporting IP, our team offers a complete business solution for semiconductor companies to strategically leverage their internal IP portfolio to grow overall revenue. IPextreme has offices in Campbell, California, Munich, Germany and Tokyo, Japan. www.ip-extreme.com.

About Cypress

Cypress solutions perform: consumer, computation, data communications, automotive, industrial, and solar." Leveraging proprietary silicon processes, Cypress's product portfolio includes a broad selection of wired and wireless USB devices, CMOS image sensors, timing solutions, specialty memories, high-bandwidth synchronous and micropower memory products, optical solutions and reconfigurable mixed-signal arrays. Cypress trades on the NYSE under the ticker symbol CY. Visit us at www.cypress.com.

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