Altair Semiconductor Licenses Sonics' On-Chip Networks for Ultra-Low Power, High-Performance 4G Processors

Sonics Selected for Altair's Family of Advanced 4G LTE Chipsets

BARCELONA, SPAIN -- February 15, 2011 - MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS -- Sonics, Inc.®, the world's number one supplier of on-chip communications IP, today announced that three of its on-chip network solutions have been licensed by Altair Semiconductor, the world's leading developer of ultra-low power, small footprint and high performance 4G LTE chipsets, for the company's existing and next-generation line of ultra-low power, small footprint LTE processors.

Altair introduced its commercial grade FourGee™-3100/6200 LTE chipset in September 2009, one of the first chip companies to market 4G technology, and has since announced numerous product and commercial milestones, including customer wins, field trials and commercial deployments.

"Altair's products are among the smallest and most power-optimized in the industry, so power efficiencies, design flexibility and performance are paramount for us," said Eran Eshed, co-founder and vice president of marketing and business development at Altair Semiconductor. "We chose Sonics over other competitive offerings because they provided us with the best total system solution and product support available for on-chip networks, giving us the design edge we needed to exceed our aggressive power and performance goals. Additionally, Sonics helped us with ease of design, integration and superior on-chip connectivity capabilities that are vital for complex, next-generation network processing."

Sonics' on-chip networks enable semiconductor companies and OEMs to significantly reduce time-to-market, decrease development costs and increase performance in advanced SoCs. As one of the company's high-performance solutions, SonicsMX delivers high bandwidth with leading edge, fine-grained power management functionality. Quality of Service, access security, and error handling features comprise a robust turn-key solution that facilitates ultra-high design predictability and decreases engineering time. SonicsSX contains a high-performance, advanced fabric and comprehensive set of data flow services for the development of complex, multi-core and multi-subsystem SoCs -- and can serve as a local subsystem or global on-chip network solution. The Sonics3220 is used to offer a low gate count, cost-efficient solution as well as a simplified physical layout for any SoC design.

"Sonics understands the significant SoC demands of highly competitive markets such as next-generation wireless networks and advanced mobile radio communications," said Jack Browne, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Sonics. "Altair has built a successful business on innovation, and as its partner, we value that level of progression and know the intricate design requirements necessary to maintain that 'first-mover' advantage. We're excited to be part of their product success today and look forward to collaborating with Altair as they continue to advance LTE and wireless SoC technologies."

About Altair

Altair Semiconductor is the world's leading developer of ultra-low power, small footprint and high performance 4G semiconductors. The company's products provide device manufacturers integrating 4G LTE technology into their products with a highly power-optimized, robust and cost-effective solution. Altair's comprehensive product portfolio includes baseband processors, multi-band RF transceivers for both FDD and TDD bands, and a range of reference hardware and product level protocol stack software. Based on a novel, proprietary Software Defined Radio (SDR) processor, codenamed "O2P™", Altair's products are the smallest and most highly power optimized in the industry, offering an unmatched combination of flexibility and performance. For more information, visit the company's website at www.altair-semi.com.

About Sonics

Sonics, Inc. is a pioneer of network-on-chip (NoC) technology and today offers SoC designers the largest portfolio of intelligent, on-chip communications solutions for home entertainment, wireless, networking and mobile devices. With a broad array of silicon-proven IP, Sonics helps designers eliminate memory bottlenecks associated with complex, high-speed SoC design, streamline and unify data flows and solve persistent network challenges in embedded systems with multiple cores. As the leading supplier of on-chip communications networks, Sonics has enabled its customers to ship more than one billion units worldwide. Founded in 1996, Sonics is headquartered in Milpitas, Calif. with offices worldwide. For more information, please visit www.sonicsinc.com and www.sonicsinc.com/blog.