CEVA Launches Foundry Program With UMC
San Jose, CA - January 05, 2004 - CEVA, Inc., (NASDAQ: CEVA;
LSE: CVA), the industry's leading licensor of Digital Signal Processor
(DSP) cores and solutions to the semiconductor industry, today announced
the establishment of a foundry program with UMC (NYSE: UMC), a leading
global semiconductor foundry. The program will enable fabless
semiconductor companies in emerging markets to quickly and
cost-effectively deliver products that feature CEVA-Teak and CEVA-TeakLite
DSP cores for applications ranging from wireless handsets to digital
multimedia products.
The agreement will allow fabless companies to license the CEVA-Teak and
CEVA-TeakLite, the number one licensed DSPs, and manufacture
system-on-chip (SoC) solutions at UMC. UMC will port the CEVA DSPs to its
processes, thereby reducing development costs and accelerating time to
market for their fabless semiconductor customers incorporating IP cores
into their designs.
UMC's participation in the foundry program reflects the rapid growth in
the DSP market. Electronics market research firm Forward Concepts
forecasts 20 percent annual DSP growth by the end of 2003 and 25 percent
in 2004. Most of the growth is coming from the Far East, positioning UMC
to capture significant new business from its large base of Asian customers
through the CEVA alliance.
"With the rising demand for DSP core solutions, we are pleased to
partner with CEVA to offer their innovative DSP solutions to our foundry
customers," said Patrick Lin, Chief SOC Architect at UMC. "This
relationship will allow us to expand our IP offerings in this important
market with proven technology from a company with more than a decade of
experience in DSP intellectual property solutions."
"This foundry program will broaden our market by enabling us to forge
relationships with fabless companies that are looking for fast
time-to-market on a proven process," said Derek Meyer, Vice President of
Business Development for CEVA. "Teaming with a leading semiconductor
foundry like UMC to make our CEVA-Teak and CEVA-TeakLite DSPs available
under a foundry license promises to broaden our penetration in cellular
markets, and expand in the emerging arena of digital multimedia
applications."
About UMC
UMC (NYSE: UMC, TSE: 2303) is a leading global semiconductor foundry
that manufactures advanced process ICs for applications spanning every
major sector of the semiconductor industry. UMC delivers cutting-edge
foundry technologies that enable sophisticated system-on-chip (SOC)
designs, including 90nm copper, 0.13um copper, embedded DRAM, and mixed
signal/RFCMOS. UMC is also a leader in 300mm manufacturing; Fab 12A in
Taiwan is currently in volume production for a variety of customer
products, while Singapore-based UMCi is now in pilot production. UMC
employs over 8,500 people worldwide and has offices in Taiwan, Japan,
Singapore, Europe, and the United States. UMC can be found on the web at
http://www.umc.com.
About CEVA, Inc.
Headquartered in San Jose, Calif., CEVA is the leading licensor of digital signal processor (DSP) cores, multimedia, GPS and storage platforms to the semiconductor industry. CEVA licenses a family of programmable DSP cores, associated SoC system platforms and a portfolio of application platforms including multimedia, audio, Voice over Packet (VoP), GPS location, Bluetooth, Serial Attached SCSI and Serial ATA (SATA). In 2005 CEVA's IP was shipped in over 115 million devices. CEVA was created through the merger of the DSP licensing division of DSP Group and Parthus Technologies. For more information, visit ceva-dsp.com.
A PDF copy of this press release is also available here
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Note Concerning Forward-Looking Statements
Some of the statements in the foregoing
announcement are forward looking within the meaning of the U.S. Federal
Securities laws, including statements about future outsourcing, wafer
capacity, technologies, business relationships and market conditions.
Investors are cautioned that actual events and results could differ
materially from these statements as a result of a variety of factors,
including conditions in the overall semiconductor market and economy;
acceptance and demand for products; and technological and development
risks.