Toshiba Unveils Serial Link Cell Agreement with Rambus Targeting Backplane and Fibre Channel Applications

- Toshiba Corporation (Toshiba) and Rambus Inc. (Nasdaq:RMBS), a leading developer of chip interface products and services, today announced that Toshiba has signed an agreement with Rambus to incorporate Rambus's RaSer(tm) serial link cell technology into the Toshiba 90 nanometer (nm) process technology library.

The cell technology operates at up to 6.25Gbps and offers a proven, full-featured and easy-to-integrate solution that addresses some of the toughest interconnect problems associated with the backplane. In addition, the cell meets the Fibre Channel standard at 1, 2 and 4Gbps for storage area networking (SAN) applications. This solution, coupled with Toshiba's advanced system-on-a-chip (SoC) technology, will enable next-generation SAN systems and backplane interconnects to achieve unprecedented bandwidth and network performance as well as density and die size at the lowest power.

"This move is part of the Toshiba leadership strategy to make advanced technology available to customers who need leading-edge performance and/or the production economies of scale provided by our high-yield, high-volume 90nm process," said Tooru Masaoka, general manager of the Custom and Telecom SoC Division at Toshiba Semiconductor Company.

"Rambus's RaSer serial link technology is a critical ingredient for our customers' successes in the SAN and data networking markets." Toshiba has been shipping production quantities of its 90nm custom SoCs since the second quarter of 2003, considerably ahead of others.

"Rambus is a recognized technology leader for high-speed interface solutions. The company's proven, patented technology and the sizable, experienced implementation team behind the IP made it our clear choice for high-performance I/O for storage and communications applications," said Richard Tobias, vice president of the ASIC and Foundry Business Unit at Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc.

"Rambus has a long history of collaboration with Toshiba and we're pleased to extend our relationship into the logic interface arena. Our advanced RaSer PHY serial link technology combined with the world-class Toshiba 90 nanometer process provides our collective customers with a highly integrated solution for challenging backplane environments," said Kevin Donnelly, vice president for the Logic Interface Division at Rambus. "The RaSer cell enables maximum system capacity under extreme space, power and cost constraints."

The RaSer(tm) Family of Serial Link Cells

The Rambus family of RaSer cells offers designers scalable serial link architectures that are optimized to address current and future serial link applications requiring the highest bandwidth and channel count on a single chip. The RaSer serial link family can be employed across a variety of computing and communication applications, including modular switch backplanes, Gigabit and 10-Gigabit Ethernet, PCI Express, 1, 2 & 4Gbps Fibre Channel, fiber optic network interfaces and any other custom chip-to-chip applications.

The Rambus RaSer family of serial link cells is offered as a library cell for ASIC and ASSP designs. A complete serial link solution, each RaSer cell contains serializer, transmitter, receiver, deserializer, clock multiplier and clock recovery circuitry. These cells are designed to meet the physical layer requirements for a wide range of serial link applications, each of which may have different logical requirements (protocol, framing, coding, etc.). As a replacement to discrete serial link components, the RaSer family may be integrated with other communications functions in order to offer better integration and reduced component cost.

Availability

Toshiba expects to have working silicon based on this development in the third quarter of 2004 with volume production planned for 2005.

About Toshiba Corporation

Toshiba Corporation is a leader in the development and manufacture of electronic devices and components, information and communication systems, consumer products and power systems. The company's ability to integrate wide-ranging capabilities, from hardware to software and innovative services, assure its position as an innovator in diverse fields and many businesses. In semiconductors, Toshiba continues to promote its leadership in the fast growing system-on-chip market and to build on its world-class position in NAND flash memories, analog devices and discrete devices. Toshiba has approximately 166,000 employees worldwide and annual sales of over US$47 billion. Visit Toshiba's website at www.toshiba.co.jp/index.htm.

About TAEC

Combining quality and flexibility with design engineering expertise, TAEC brings a breadth of advanced, next-generation technologies to its customers. This broad offering includes semiconductors, flash memory-based storage solutions, optical communication devices, displays and rechargeable batteries for the computing, wireless, networking, automotive and digital consumer markets.

TAEC is an independent operating company owned by Toshiba America, Inc., a subsidiary of Toshiba, the third largest semiconductor company worldwide in terms of global sales for the year 2002 according to Gartner/Dataquest's Worldwide Semiconductor Market Share Ranking. Toshiba is a world leader in high-technology products with more than 300 major subsidiaries and affiliates worldwide. For additional company and product information, please visit TAEC's website at chips.toshiba.com. For technical inquiries, please e-mail Tech.Questions@taec.toshiba.com.

About Rambus Inc.

Rambus is one of the world's leading providers of advanced chip interface products and services. Since its founding in 1990, the company's innovations, breakthrough technologies and integration expertise have help industry-leading chip and system companies solve their most challenging and complex I/O problems and bring their products to market. Rambus interface solutions can be found in numerous computing, consumer, and communications products and applications. Rambus is headquartered in Los Altos, California, with regional offices in the United States, Taiwan and Japan. Additional information is available at www.rambus.com.

Information in this press release, including product pricing and specifications, content of services and contact information, is current on the date of the announcement, but is subject to change without prior notice.

Rambus is a registered trademark of Rambus Inc. and RaSer is a trademark of Rambus Inc. Other trademarks that may be mentioned in this release are the intellectual property of their respective owners. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.