Jennic Sees Record Uptake of Intellectual Property for Use in Next Generation Cellular Base-Stations

• Strong growth in high-bandwidth cellular base-station and mobile data communications markets
• IP licenses of RapidIO, FEC and ATM-SAR
• IP customers include ASIC and FPGA partners, semiconductor companies and system OEMs

-- Jennic has reported a record uptake of Intellectual Property usage in the cellular base-station and mobile data communications markets. This is reflected in a fivefold increase of sales of Intellectual Property (IP) licenses in the first half of 2008 versus first half of 2007, due to strong performance of their RapidIO® system-level IP products, FEC and ATM-SAR cores.

Jim Lindop, Jennic’s CEO, commented “The communications sector has been showing strong growth with base-stations turning to high-performance digital signal processing in response to increased demand for high-bandwidth mobile data communications. Licensing RapidIO IP, allows companies to achieve a significant performance boost, and a fast entry into the high-performance market, whilst lowering design overhead and risk.”

Jennic licences a complete range of fully integrated RapidIO interface solutions for integration into SoC semiconductor devices. Developed as a cost-effective, standards-based, switched replacement for comparatively expensive proprietary busses, RapidIO is used in high-performance embedded systems such as networking and communications equipment as well as in enterprise storage networks. The most typical application for Jennic's RapidIO core is to connect multiple DSP cores in cellular base-stations. In addition to the RapidIO product line, Jennic has also seen continued interest and licensing for its IP portfolio of FEC and ATM-SAR cores.

Jennic directly serves semiconductor companies as end-users, and also serves system-OEM companies via ASIC and FPGA partners such as IBM, NEC and Altera, where Jennic's IPR is at production status. Jennic’s technology has also been directly or indirectly licensed by semiconductor companies and by system OEMs.

"IBM has recently shipped silicon for a client’s 65nm base station communications ASIC containing the Jennic SRIO,” said Adrian O’Connor, sales director, IBM Microelectronics. "The quality of Jennic’s IP cores, as well as the level of support we have received from Jennic, has allowed us to deliver optimal solutions to our customers for the past five years in order to allow them to set themselves apart from competitors.”

"We have licensed technology from Jennic over the past 3 years" comments Takatoshi Koga, General Manager of System ASIC Division from NEC Electronics. "They provide working silicon and are hugely respected by our customers".

About Jennic

Jennic is a fabless semiconductor company leading the wireless connectivity revolution by providing wireless microcontrollers for a broad range of applications. Its expertise in systems and software combined with world class RF and digital chip design provides low cost, highly integrated wireless microcontrollers with a focus on the IEEE802.15.4 and ZigBee standards. The company’s products include state-of-the-art low power wireless microcontrollers, modules, development platforms, protocol and application software. Headquartered in Sheffield, UK, Jennic also has offices in China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the USA. For more information, visit www.jennic.com.