Five New Customers License Impinj's AEON Memory

Embedded Nonvolatile Memory Technology Lowers Chip Cost, Broadens Market Opportunities 

SEATTLE, Wash., August 2, 2004 – Impinj, Inc., a fabless semiconductor company whose patented Self-Adaptive Silicon® technology enables its two business lines: semiconductor intellectual property (SIP) and high performance RFID products, today announced that its AEON™ memory, the industry’s lowest cost, rewritable, embedded nonvolatile memory (NVM) technology, has been licensed by the following companies for use in a broad range of electronics products:

• Dragonchip Limited (System chip and microcontroller provider)
• Primarion (Mixed-signal semiconductor company)
• SpatiaLight, Inc. (Liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) microdisplay manufacturer)
• Toppan Printing Co., Ltd. (Electronics and consumer products manufacturer)
• Zentrum Mikroelektronik Dresden (ZMD) (Sensor and wireless applications chip provider)

AEON addresses the need for moderate amounts of reprogrammable NVM in chips for a variety of rapidly growing, high volume end-markets, including LCD display drivers, application-specific microcontrollers, and radio frequency identification (RFID).  Embedded NVM allows designers to incorporate on-chip analog trim, product configuration and calibration, and customer-specific data storage into a system.  The AEON design kit, a turnkey solution, eases the integration of NVM into high volume system-on-chip (SoC) products, thus reducing chip costs while increasing functionality of products that integrate digital and analog. 

“Impinj’s AEON memory technology is demonstrating its promise:  wringing more performance from existing processes and allowing digital, analog and NVM to be more tightly coupled,” said Bob Merritt, Director of Emerging Markets at Semico Research Corporation. “AEON memory is completely different from other approaches and is much more cost-effective.  The benefits of AEON memory could positively impact almost every sector of the semiconductor industry.”

Unlike traditional, complex embedded memory technologies, such as FLASH and EEPROM, that rely on specialized semiconductor manufacturing processes, Impinj’s AEON memory is manufactured using standard logic CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) processes from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd. (TSMC), the world’s largest dedicated chip foundry. 

"AEON memory is a key component in enabling ZMD to produce highly integrated, cost-effective RF transceivers for the ZigBee™ market," said Kory Brown, Vice President, Wireless Products for ZMD America. "Impinj's support and product performance have been important to our product success."

In addition to reduced chip development time and manufacturing costs, customers benefit from AEON‘s ease of use, low power consumption and industry standard data retention and endurance, essential components in high volume applications. 

“Impinj is delighted with the rapidly growing list of companies who have licensed AEON memory for a wide variety of exciting electronics applications,” said Larry Morrell, Vice President IP Products at Impinj. "Our customers tell us that AEON memory allows them to quickly and cost-effectively bring chips to market with much higher levels of functionality and therefore much broader market appeal.”

About Impinj, Inc.

Impinj, Inc. is a fabless semiconductor company whose patented Self-Adaptive Silicon® technology enables its two synergistic business lines: high performance RFID products and cost-effective semiconductor intellectual property (SIP).  Impinj's semiconductor chips power high performance, enhanced-functionality RFID systems that fulfill the global mandates promulgated by the consumer packaged goods and retailing industries.  The company is a leading contributor to the emerging RFID standards for high volume supply-chain applications worldwide.  Impinj’s innovative SIP products, core to the company’s RFID tags, are licensed to leading semiconductor companies worldwide allowing them to cost-effectively integrate crucial nonvolatile memory (NVM) alongside analog and digital functionality on a single chip.  Impinj’s SIP products include the popular AEON™ memory, the world's first rewritable NVM technology compatible with logic CMOS manufacturing.

Self-Adaptive Silicon is a registered trademark of Impinj, Inc.

AEON is a trademark of Impinj, Inc.

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