Mind NV and Essensium NV join forces on System-on-Chip Development

Leuven, Belgium, 10th March 2006 – Essensium N.V., a fabless provider of SoC ASICs (system-on-chip application-specific integrated circuits), today announced that is has acquired all shares of Mind N.V., a leading provider of embedded Linux, eCos and DSP software integration services.

Essensium is a fabless semiconductor company that provides system-on-chip products and design services to original equipment manufacturers, design houses, and application-specific standard-products (ASSP) suppliers. Essensium acts as an aggregator, which manages the full silicon development and supply chain. Essensium thereby adds key value at several stages of the flow, especially at the system-design level, where the impact on delivering competitive SoC solutions is the largest. The integration of Mind within Essensium will strengthen Essensium's service portfolio by offering a truly software-hardware co-design capability.

The availability of embedded software know-how is key to the success of complex SoC development. Mind has extensive experience porting Linux and eCos to SoC's based on ARM, XScale, PowerPC and MIPS and in developing complex software stacks for networking, multi-media, industrial automation, domotic- and medical applications to major European customers.

Johan Danneels, CEO of Essensium, said: "Early involvement at system definition stage by both hardware & software experts is crucial for optimal system partitioning. The acquisition of Mind by Essensium reinforces the position of Essensium as the One-Stop-Soc Aggregator ".

Peter Vandenabeele, CEO of Mind, said: "SoC's require a sound foundation of driver software, operating system support and software stacks for dedicated applications.

The integration of Mind within Essensium will allow us to create optimal value to our customers by providing stable and performing software stacks with the SoC's that are supplied by Essensium. At the same time, we will continue to serve our current customers to which we provide high-level embedded software engineering services."

About Essensium NV

Essensium is a fabless semiconductor company located in Leuven, Belgium, that provides system-on-chip products and design services to original equipment manufacturers, design houses, and ASSP suppliers. Essensium was created as a spin-off of the nanotechnology research center IMEC in Leuven. Essensium’s skills and technology focus on custom silicon for portable, wireless, and low power applications. Essensium is an ideal partner for customers that want to create new, innovative, and affordable portable products and that inevitably will be confronted with lower start-up volumes. In addition, Essensium will also work towards the development of standard products for wireless sensor networks and active RFID applications. Essensium’s team has accumulated significant experience in designing and delivering complex, low power, wireless system-on-chip solutions and wants to leverage this know how for customers that lack the skills to develop their own highly integrated System-on-Chip solutions. For more information on Essensium, please visit http://www.essensium.com

About Mind NV

Mind delivers development, technical consulting, tool chains, training and support for Linux, eCos and DSP on embedded systems. Mind has a number of specialized engineers in Leuven, Belgium and serves customers over Europe, USA and Asia. For additional information on Mind please visit http://www.mind.be