Aplus Flash Technology achieves design yields of 96% and above in its 0.5um embedded OTP designs for its customer Synaptics

San Jose, California, September 4, 2003 - Aplus Flash Technology, a leader in nonvolatile memory, recently achieved 96% OTP design yields for its 0.5um embedded OTP IP licensing customer, Synaptics, Inc. Synaptics is a US company and leading developer of human interface solutions for a wide variety of mobile computing and communications devices and is the leading supplier of TouchPads to the notebook computer market.

Synaptics licensed Aplus' 0.5um embedded OTP for use in their microcontroller design. Aplus was able to provide them with a customized OTP block tailored to fit their specific and unique density, speed and power consumption needs. This design worked at first cut with no mask changes, giving Synaptics a solid design for low cost production. In addition, Aplus' proprietary technology and experience was used to reduce both development time as well as testing time after wafer out.

The OTP IP was silicon proven on UMC's 0.5um 2M2P OTP process. The 96% yield showcases Aplus' leading, production ready design. With 96% yield, the 4% yield loss can mainly be attributed to the fab defect density and not the design. Aplus also recently achieved 96% yield with its 0.5um embedded OTP IP design at Hynix in Korea. Aplus has had its 0.5um OTP IP silicon proven at UMC, Hynix, Episil Technologies and CSMC. Aplus also offers its OTP IP on 0.35um 3M2P OTP process.

About Aplus Flash Technology:
Aplus Flash Technology, Inc., was founded in 1998 as a fabless design company. Our founders, Peter W. Lee et al. are pioneers and leaders in nonvolatile memory (NVM) technology specializing in embedded NVM memory IP. Our product line includes memory products like ROM, OTP EPROM, NTP and EEPROM, with Flash under way. It also encompasses embedded designs such as ROM, OTP, NTP, EEPROM, low-density Flash + EEPROM and MaxFlash embedded. Aplus' embedded licensees include leading global semiconductor companies and our foundry connections span worldwide in countries including Taiwan, Korea and China. For more information, please visit: www.aplusflash.com.