Synochip adopts Elliptic's Public Key Cryptography Engine and Ellipsys Software

May 28, 2008 - Hangzhou, China and Ottawa, Canada. - Synochip, a venture backed, fabless semiconductor company has licensed Elliptic's public key accelerator hardware engine and Ellipsys key generation software for use in its next generation of digital signal processing and security products. After being founded in 2005, Synochip has quickly emerged as the leading supplier of fingerprint specific DSP for use in USB key, personal computers, physical access control and electronic access devices. The inclusion of Elliptic's hardware and software security engines in Synochip's next generation product will offer improved cryptographic capabilities and faster response time to allow Synochip to address customers with higher security applications in this high growth market.

Synochip represent a new breed of start-up company in China. The company has successfully combined the vast engineering talent available in China with Western style venture capital to address the requirements of the burgeoning electronics industry in Asia. Synochip has focused on a specific market segment to build its initial products combining advanced digital signal processing with security and software at a price which meets the objectives of its customers. From it early success in China, Synochip plans to develop an international business serving customer around the world with its advanced technology solutions.

"In three short years, Synochip has grown from an idea to a leader in its target market," indicated Mr. Bowin Qiu, President and CEO of Synochip . "Our plan is to combine Chinese engineering talent with best of class technology from suppliers like Elliptic. We were able to quickly integrate Elliptic's powerful public key cryptography engine and software which will offer our customer greatly improved security and performance capabilities. We look forward to a long-term, mutually profitable relationship with our new partner."

"Despite the challenges of language and time zones, the two teams successfully collaborated on the development of Synochip's next generation SoC," said Richard White President and CEO for Elliptic. "It is a great pleasure to work with Synochip as it represents a new breed of entrepreneurial company emerging in China. Asia is central to the growth in semiconductors and Synochip's success bodes well for the business model of indigenous semiconductor companies based in China serving world markets with innovative, market leading products."

Synochip was founded by blending a vigorous team of entrepreneurs with international venture capital in November 2005. Synochip Corporation is the first high-tech company in mainland China that devotes itself to the design and marketing of DSP, SoC, and ASIC. Aimed at fingerprint and information security markets, Synochip products have received wide acknowledgements from customers in many fields, such as physical access control, consumer electronics, industrial control and information security. Employing the world's advanced SoC design technology, holding the employment philosophy of equity, trust and care, Synochip focuses on providing its customers the best single-chip solutions and strives towards becoming the world leading provider of DSP and DSP-based SoC.

About Elliptic

Recently ranked as the fastest growing provider of security semiconductor IP by Gartner, Elliptic provides semiconductor intellectual property (IP) cores and middleware for secure communications ranging from low power to multi-gigabit per second implementations. Elliptic SIP cores enable system-on-chip designers to efficiently balance power, performance and silicon area in complex security-based systems. Demanding customers in markets such as implantable devices, wireless, storage, content distribution and high performance communications trust Elliptic IP cores.