Falanx Microsystems Demonstrates First H.264 Hardware Implementation for Mobile Devices at 3GSM

Falanx Teams With Flextronics Software Systems to Deliver Complete Hardware-Accelerated Codec Capable of Delivering 30fps H.264 Video for Mobile Phones

BARCELONA, Spain -- Feb. 13,  2006 -- At 3GSM World Congress 2006, Falanx Microsystems, Inc. the premier developer of mobile graphics/video IP cores for System-on-Chip (SoC) semiconductor manufacturers, today unveiled a demonstration hardware platform that enables high-quality, low-bandwidth H.264 video on mobile devices. The demonstration combines Falanx Mali IP cores with a high-performance video codec developed by Emuzed, and is the first hardware implementation of its kind to demonstrate 30fps H.264 video for small-screen devices such as mobile phones.

Falanx and Flextronics Software Systems have been collaborating on this joint effort since mid-2005, and commercially available products are on the immediate horizon using their combined technologies. The result of their alliance will result in some of the industry's first practical applications of the H.264 standard, which offers considerable performance improvements over interim standards such as MPEG 4, and up to twice the performance of H.263.

"The industry does not want to wait for the high-quality, low-bandwidth performance of H.264 video, and our alliance with Falanx will allow us to meet that demand almost immediately," said Dr. Rajesh Srivathsa, Head of Business for Mobile Terminal Products and Services, at Flextronics Software Systems. "The combination of Falanx' advanced hardware performance and our innovative H.264-based codec enables us to leapfrog interim solutions and deliver tomorrow's mobile technology today."

"Our collaboration with FSS has made H.264-based 30fps video available for small screen devices, along with user-empowering interactivity through OpenVG(TM) vector graphics and interfaces," said Borgar Ljosland, president and CEO of Falanx. "With this demonstration at 3GSM, Falanx again demonstrates our ability to deliver on new technologies such as H.264 while maintaining our solid commitment to industry standards such as OpenVG."

High-quality video and graphics on a single chip

Simultaneous with its ground-breaking H.264 video quality, Mali IP cores are capable of processing high-quality 2D and 3D video using the same gates. This means that mobile device manufacturers can offer both H.264 video and rich graphics with no additional cost, silicon or power consumption. Further supporting graphics quality and cost-effectiveness is Falanx' support for OpenVG, a royalty-free, cross-platform API that provides a low-level hardware acceleration interface for vector graphics libraries such as Flash and SVG. Using the hardware-accelerated Falanx/Emuzed solution with OpenVG support, mobile phone manufacturers can deliver highly interactive user interfaces and text displays at very low power levels.

About Flextronics Software Systems

Flextronics Software Systems (FSS) is an end to end communication solutions provider with more than 200 customers worldwide, in the telecom infrastructure, service provider, and business process outsourcing sectors. A specialist in convergent network solutions, FSS offers both products (licensable technologies) and full spectrum outsourcing services to its customers for wireline, wireless, next generation fixed or IP networks. Assessed at SEI-CMMI Level 5, FSS has been an ISO 9001 company since 1996, employing more than 5000 professionals at Bangalore, Chennai, Gurgaon and Nuremberg development centres.

For more on Flextronics mobile terminal software and services, please refer to http://www.emuzed.com

About Falanx

Falanx Microsystems develops graphics accelerator IP cores, marketed to semiconductor system-on-chip (SoC) vendors, that deliver high quality multimedia images without compromising performance, power consumption and system cost. Unlike most graphics IP cores, Falanx's Mali Graphics Core-designed from the ground-up for mobile applications such as cell phones, PDAs and portable game platforms-is the only graphics IP core offering a complete integration of 2D, 3D and video, plus software and interoperability drivers, in an all-in-one solution. Falanx is headquartered in Trondheim, Norway, and is privately-held. For more information about Falanx and the Mali IP Core Family, visit http://www.falanx.com.