Olympus Renews and Expands License of Tensilica's Xtensa Microprocessor

Santa Clara, Calif. – January 16, 2006 – Tensilica, Inc., the only company to automate the design of optimized application-specific configurable processors for system-on-chip (SOC) design, today announced that Olympus Corporation has renewed and expanded its license of Tensilica’s Xtensa technology.  Olympus is now making Xtensa technology, including the Xtensa LX processor, available to its design groups in its Corporate R&D Center in both Japan and the United States.

“We are very pleased to continue working with Tensilica,” stated Michio Ishii, Olympus’ General Manager, SOC Technology Department, Digital Platform Technology Division, Corporate R&D Center. “Tensilica’s Xtensa processor technology has been very valuable to design organizations throughout our company.”

“We are excited that a prestigious company such as Olympus has decided to renew and expand our agreement,” said Steve Roddy, Tensilica vice president of marketing.  “By moving up to the Xtensa LX processor and using our technology throughout their design groups, Olympus is showing the value and success they have found in working with Tensilica.”

The Xtensa LX configurable processor can be used to meet high-performance and low-power goals far beyond the range of solutions achievable with standard general-purpose embedded processors. The Xtensa LX processor achieves performance levels rivaling the power and performance of hardware-only designs built with hand-coded RTL because design teams use Tensilica’s easy-to-use, integrated tools to rapidly and carefully tune the processor for their particular application or function. Customized Xtensa LX processors are correct by construction and feature an automatically created matching software tool chain.

About Olympus Corporation

Olympus Corporation is a global leader in the supply of products based on "opto-digital technology" - a complete integration of traditional optical technology and advanced digital technology. This technology enables the development of Olympus' extensive line of award-winning digital imaging products including microscopes, endoscopes, film cameras, and digital cameras. Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, Olympus was founded in 1919. For more information, visit the Olympus web site at www.olympus.co.jp.

About Tensilica

Tensilica was founded in July 1997 to address the growing need for optimized, application-specific microprocessor and DSP solutions in high-volume embedded applications. Using a configurable and extensible processor core called Xtensa, Tensilica is the only company that has transformed the once-arduous task of generating a customized processor core and companion software development tool environment into an automated process that takes less than one hour. For more information on Tensilica's patented approach to the creation of application-specific building blocks for SOC design, visit www.tensilica.com.