Kawasaki Microelectronics (KME) licenses SMART Interconnect IP technology from Sonics, Inc.

Open Core Protocol™ (OCP) -Based Technology Greatly Simplifies Inter-Block Communication in Complex KME SOCs

Mountain View, Calif. - April 5, 2004 - Kawasaki Microelectronics (KME), a leader in advanced yet affordable ASICs, and Sonics, Inc., a leading provider of SOC (System-on-Chip) architectures and SMART Interconnect IP products, today announced that KME has licensed Sonics' entire family of SMART Interconnect IP technology.

"A broad IP portfolio is a key factor customers consider when selecting an ASIC vendor ", said Kyoichi Kissei, Executive Vice-President of Sales, Marketing, and Logistics at KME. "By taking advantage of system-level IP blocks in our portfolio, such as IEEE 802.11 and Serial ATA, our customers can focus their attention on designing their proprietary IP which differentiates their product from their competitors. The Sonics technology, which replaces the complex mix of buses, custom interconnect and control wires typically used in SOCs with an elegant communications solution, enables our customers to easily connect together blocks from our extensive IP portfolio, greatly speeding up the development of their SOCs" "The Sonics Interconnect IP also aligns with KME's Matrix ASIC strategic initiative," said Tim Smith Vice-President of Sales at Sonics. "One of the key benefits of our technology is that it supports flexible "platform" development and rapid deployment of optimized derivative products, the same benefits as offered by KME's Matrix ASICs. We look forward to working with KME to help their customers succeed."

Sonics IP products include 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.

About Kawasaki Microelectronics, Inc. (KME)

KME is the leader in advanced yet affordable ASIC semiconductor technology solutions. The company's innovative core technologies and world-class design support are used in the consumer electronics, computer, office-automation, networking, wireless, and electronic-storage markets. The company is an active participant in industry standards organizations, including the Wi-Fi Alliance, Network Processing Forum (NPF), Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF), PCI Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG), USB Implementers Forum, MPEG Industry Forum (MPEGIF), Mobile Computing Promotion Consortium (MCPC), the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, and the Digital Display Working Group (DDWG). Kawasaki has design centers in Boston, San Jose, Taipei, and Tokyo.

For more information, contact the company at 408-570-0555, or visit its English-language web site at http://www.klsi.com/, its Japanese-language web site at http://www.k-micro.com/.

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.

SiliconBackplane, S3220, and MemMax are trademarks of Sonics, Inc.