Silicon & Software Systems (S3) opens new System IC Design Center in Central Prague, Czech Republic

Prague, Czech Republic, 7th April 2006 – Later today S3's new System IC design center will be officially opened by the Irish Ambassador to the Czech Republic, His Excellency Donal Hamill.  The new center provides significant additional capacity to S3's existing design center, allowing S3 to grow its presence in the Czech Republic. With office space for over one hundred engineers at this new facility, S3 plans on expanding the high quality, cost-effective services currently provided to its multi-national semiconductor clients.

"We are very pleased to announce this expansion in our design capacity in this important region after nearly twenty years of building a successful IC design business," said Dermot Barry, General Manager of System IC at S3. "Prague offers S3 a business environment with modern infrastructure and proximity to many of our customers with European activities along with access to a pool of highly trained engineers with excellent communication skills. Our Prague teams have a history of delivering high quality and already have been involved in the development of a number of 65nm Integrated Circuits. We plan to continue to maintain our high standards of first-time-right designs."

S3's activities in Prague date back to 1998 and currently the engineering team designs IC products on leading edge processes down to 65nm for major semiconductor manufacturers and fabless semiconductor clients. The team has a significant number of senior professionals with capabilities across the full design chain for complex mixed signal SoCs and extensive experience in a range of EDA (Electronic Design Automation) environments.

About Silicon & Software Systems Ltd. (S3):

S3 has a 19 year track record of providing innovative System IC design solutions right-first-time based on a unique combination of specialist design expertise, advanced methodologies and application experience. S3 focuses on leading edge IC design and has been delivering designs in 90nm to clients since 2003 and 65nm since 2004, successfully targeting a variety of foundries with a compelling right-first-time record. S3 works with the world's top semiconductor companies (IDMs and fabless) and has working relationships with leading foundries such as TSMC, IBM and UMC, and EDA Suppliers such as Cadence and Synopsys. S3 addresses the complete System IC design cycle from architecture to verification, to system verified silicon.

S3's portfolio of silicon-proven customizable Mixed Signal IP features high performance analog building blocks, such as ADCs, DACs and PLLs, for a variety of technically demanding applications including Wireless LAN, Broadband Communications, Imaging and Video.

S3 provides design solutions in four key areas: System IC, Digital Consumer, Network Infrastructure and Medical Systems. Included amongst S3's clients and partners are Intel, IBM, OpenTV, Philips, STMicroelectronics, Sky, Texas Instruments, Toshiba and Xilinx.  Approximately 50% of clients are U.S. based with the remainder based in Europe and the Asia/Pacific region. S3 was founded in Dublin, Ireland in 1986 and has operations in six countries: Ireland, USA, the Netherlands, Poland, Czech Republic and the UK.

S3 Web Site: www.s3group.com/system_ic