Alchemy Semiconductor Unveils Au1000™ Internet Edge Processor

High Performance, Low Power System-on-a-Chip (SOC) Enables Emerging Wireless Data Communication Devices

SAN JOSE, CA -- 6/13/2000 -- Alchemy Semiconductor, Inc., an Austin, Texas-based fabless semiconductor company, today announces the details of its first Internet Edge Processor, the Au1000, at the Embedded Processor Forum in San Jose, CA. Based on the MIPS32™ instruction set (NASDAQ:MIPS) and designed for high performance at very low power, the Au1000 runs up to 500 MHz. Power dissipation is less than a half-watt for the 400 MHz version or more than 900 Dhrystone 2.1 MIPS/Watt for an Au1000 SOC. Alchemy has also integrated a set of peripherals on the Au1000 targeted at communications market segments whose products operate on the outer edge of the Internet network, such as wireless palm-sized PCs, 3G (third-generation) data devices, VoIP telephony devices and networking products like residential gateways, firewalls and routers.

Alchemy's Vice President of Engineering and co-founder Greg Hoeppner presented the Au1000 as part of the "Low Power and High-integration Embedded Processors" section of the embedded Processor Forum. "The strength of the Alchemy team is picking a target market, analyzing the power requirements for that market and then optimizing the performance for that power point. With the burgeoning data bandwidth needs of the Internet, the value of very high performance at very low power is increasing daily," explained Hoeppner. "The design engineering challenges surrounding the Au1000's performance, power and system integration are of great interest at this forum, and the feedback we receive from this critical audience is important as we continue developing our roadmap."

The architecture of the Au1000 consists of an Alchemy designed 32-bit core includes a five stage scalar pipeline, 16KB instruction cache and a 16KB non-blocking data cache, a high-speed multiply-accumulate (MAC) and a R4000 class memory management unit (MMU). On-chip memory control allows interface to SDRAM, SRAM or Flash EPROM. Peripherals include two 10/100 Ethernet controllers, fast IrDA, multiple UARTs, AC'97 controller and I2S. Because the Au1000 core is based on the MIPS32 instruction set and the R4000 MMU, there is broad support of operating systems, including Microsoft WindowsCE, Linux , pSOS and VxWorks, as well as a multitude of applications and development tools.

"In a few short years, worldwide wireless subscribers are expected to reach one billion," said Eric Broockman, Alchemy's President and CEO. " By 2002 new 3G high speed data services will start to become available to this vast network. The Au1000 is ideally suited to be the processor of choice for new 3G applications which plan to utilize the high speed data service."

"Devices which sit on the edge of the Internet have the common needs of low power consumption and high performance for applications. This is the difficult challenge we have addressed with the Au1000 for a very high growth market. We are well positioned for residential gateways, VoIP telephony devices, palm-sized PC's and emerging 3G applications," Broockman observed.

"Alchemy's low power and high performance product focus will help spearhead MIPS' attack on the next generation mobile and Internet appliance markets. Alchemy has a great team and the Au1000 adds a whole new class of low power, high performance processors to the MIPS family," concluded John Bourgoin, President and CEO of MIPS.

About Alchemy Semiconductor
Founded in Austin, Texas, in 1999, Alchemy Semiconductor is a fabless semiconductor company that designs, develops and markets high performance, yet very low power systems-on-a-chip (SOCs) for the Internet Edge Device market. The company's founding team includes several of the most prominent embedded microprocessor architects and developers in the world, allowing for a combination of proven design execution and MIPS performance technology to achieve high performance, low power dissipation and system integration in its Internet Edge Processor. Alchemy's headquarters are at 7800 Shoal Creek Blvd., Suite 222W, Austin, Texas 78757; or go to www.alchemysemi.com.