Sonics Responds to Arteris Complaint

Company Statement

MILPITAS, Calif., February 1, 2012 -- Sonics continues to move forward with its patent infringement lawsuit filed against Arteris on November 1, 2011.  Sonics has been careful, diligent and deliberate as we developed our technology and products, and we intend to remain factual and accurate in our communications with partners and customers.  We do not intend to respond to each and every Arteris counter claim, convoluted fact, erroneous recount of product features or false claims regarding product timing or development.  Sonics will not and cannot conduct its case in any other venue than the courts. 

However, it is important to correct and clarify facts when Arteris continues to demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding for Sonics' product architectures, including our new GHz Network-on-chip (NoC), SonicsGN™.   Arteris has made a number of recent incorrect, careless and irresponsible assertions related to packetized networks, NoC technology, crossbars, Sonics’ prior products and specific SonicsGN features.  As always, we will ensure the facts are clarified and truthfully represented for our customers and partners, which include but are not limited to: 

• Sonics pioneered NoC technology and delivered its first on-chip network product in 1997, six years before Arteris was founded
• Sonics began developing fundamental on-chip network protocols and building blocks beginning in 1996, including intelligent agents (network interfaces); flexible IP core socket protocols; and scalable network fabric protocols  
• Since its inception, Sonics has employed a socket-based methodology to isolate cores from the fabric
• The protocol and frequency decoupling provided by the agents has enabled us to deliver four generations of network fabric architectures, without forcing customers to change their IP cores
• Sonics has long offered support for GALS since its first-generation product
• Sonics’ intelligent agents perform protocol conversion, packetization, segmentation/reassembly and value-added data flow services such as QoS, error management, security management and power management
• Sonics’ network fabrics have always provided threads (aka Virtual Channels) as a way to share network links among multiple packet streams without allowing one stream to block another
• Sonics maintains the broadest patent portfolio of any on-chip network company in the world today, with more than 110 patent properties, including 47 issued U.S. patents
• Sonics remains the world’s largest supplier of on-chip network and memory subsystem IP
• Sonics' customers have shipped more than a billion chips to date worldwide--the most of any on-chip network company in the industry
• SonicsGN continues to gain rapid customer acceptance and market traction as the first and only GHz NoC commercially available today

As previously mentioned, Sonics will continue to seek protection for its broad patent portfolio, including patents that were invented and granted in the U.S. as outlined in the original complaint November 1, 2011, and categorically rejects the baseless counter claims directed to Sonics’ products asserted by Arteris in its January 27, 2012 complaint.