VSIA and OCP-IP Form Strategic Alliance

Los Gatos, Calif. and Portland Ore. - October 6, 2003 - A strategic alliance was today announced between the VSI Alliance (VSIA), an industry association chartered with developing open standards for SoC development and IP integration, and OCP-IP, a premier industry organization chartered with developing the open core protocol (OCP) as the industry accepted socket standard. The purpose of the alliance will be to jointly support the OCP socket and socket interface as an industry standard.

Under this agreement, VSIA now endorses the OCP socket and OCP-IP becomes the first VSI Alliance Adoption Group continuing to focus on tools and support to promote the adoption of OCP. Additionally, OCP-IP receives stewardship of the previously developed VSIA Bus Attributes Specification and VCI Bus Interface Standard. As a result of this agreement, VSIA members are granted free access to the OCP Standard. In anticipation of this agreement, OCP-IP has already merged the essential features of VCI into OCP 2.0.

"OCP-IP has done a tremendous job in gaining industry respect and momentum for the OCP Standard. We endorse this standard and support its adoption through the formally identified Adoption Group," said Michael Kaskowitz, VSIA President. "We will be announcing other Adoption Groups that will support industry standards developed by VSIA or other respected groups." "As the only open, fully supported industry standard socket, it is a natural evolution that the OCP standard is endorsed by VSIA," said Ian Mackintosh, president of OCP-IP. "We look forward to continuing our already extensive work in evolving the OCP Standard and its supporting infrastructure and hope that this example will lead the way for similar industry collaborations."

About OCP-IP
The OCP International Partnership Association, Inc. (OCP-IP) was announced in December 2001 to promote and support the open core protocol (OCP) as the complete socket standard that ensures rapid creation and integration of interoperable virtual components. OCP-IP's Governing Steering Committee participants are: Nokia [NYSE: NOK], Texas Instruments [NYSE: TXN], STMicroelectronics [NYSE: STM], United Microelectronics Corporation [NYSE: UMC], Sonics, and other industry leading companies. OCP-IP is a non-profit corporation delivering the first fully supported, openly licensed core-centric protocol that comprehensively fulfills system-level integration requirements. The OCP facilitates IP core reusability and reduces design time and risk, along with manufacturing costs for SoC designs. For additional background and membership information, visit www.OCPIP.org.

About VSIA
The VSI Alliance (VSIA) is an open, international organization that includes representatives from all segments of the SoC industry: System houses, Semiconductor vendors, Electronic Design Automation (EDA) companies, and Intellectual Property (IP) providers. VSIA's vision is to dramatically improve the productivity of SoC development by specifying open standards and specifications that facilitate the integration of software and hardware Virtual Components from multiple sources. Many companies have adopted the use of VSIA specifications, standards and documents. VSIA has wide industry participation with more than 100 member companies from around the world. Membership is open to any company with an interest in the development and promotion of open standards used in the design of System-on-Chip. For more information, visit the VSIA web site at www.vsi.org.

VSI Alliance is a trademark of the Virtual Socket Interface Alliance, Inc. All other brands or trademarks are the property of their respective holders and should be treated as such.