Cicada Semiconductor Demonstrates Industry's Highest Performance, Lowest Power SimpliPHY...

Business Editors & High Tech Writers

NetWorld+Interop 2002 Las Vegas

Booth #3051

AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 6, 2002

SimpliPHY Series Provides More Than 2X Higher Noise Tolerance Than

Competition while Consuming Less Than 1 Watt Per Port

Effective Gigabit Networking in LANs and SANs

Cicada Semiconductor Corporation, the leading developer of DSP and mixed-signal integrated circuits (ICs) that enable broadband communications within Local, Wide, and Storage Area Networks, announced today it will be exhibiting at Networld+Interop 2002, May 7-9, at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Among the demonstrations in Cicada's booth (#3051) will be its industry-leading Gigabit Ethernet-over-copper transceivers: the SimpliPHY(TM) CIS8204 and CIS8201. Now in volume production, the SimpliPHY product family ranks as the highest performing, lowest power 10/100/1000BASE-T transceivers in the industry, providing the highest noise immunity in real world copper cabling installations. Volume shipment of the robust SimpliPHY series means Cicada customers can accelerate implementation of powerful Gigabit networking systems in enterprise LANs and SANs, two quickly emerging markets for the transmission protocol.

The N+I demonstrations will be complete, systems-level demonstrations of the SimpliPHY Transceiver Series, including high-density desktop and workgroup switches, and NICs (Network Interface Cards). Featured as part of these demonstrations will be the recently announced SwitchCore CXE-RDK2010, a compact, 16-port, cost-optimized GbE desktop switch reference platform using Cicada's SimpliPHY CIS8204 Gigabit Ethernet-over-copper transceivers, and SwitchCore's CXE-2010 workgroup switch controller chip.

"Our SimpliPHY product family consistently outperforms other competitive GigE transceivers in the real world of substandard and noisy cabling environments," said Cicada CEO Nick van Bavel. "Our demonstrations are designed to show our superior performance in these environments as opposed to testing in the unrealistic setting of a laboratory environment. Cicada's goal is quite simple - to be the best at enabling the trouble-free installation of Gigabit over Copper cabling, which is the key to widespread adoption of this technology."

SimpliPHY's Unique Fully Adaptive DSP Architecture

The SimpliPHY series maintains cable reach in excess of 100 meters of cabling deployed in Gigabit Ethernet networks even under extreme conditions caused by noise or interference in the network equipment or cabling. This provides system users with more than twice the cable reach under real world noise conditions that cause competitive devices to fall short of meeting the minimum reach required by the IEEE specifications. This unsurpassed level of performance simplifies the Ethernet system designer's job, enabling the straightforward design of the highest density, lowest cost Ethernet switches while simultaneously easing installation and maintenance for the Gigabit Ethernet IT manager.

Unlike the competition's traditional, fixed Feed Forward Equalizers (FFEs), the SimpliPHY's fully adaptive, DSP-based FFE and timing recovery architecture delivers superior cable reach performance in the presence of a variety of system noise sources, including interference from other services and equipment. In addition, SimpliPHY simultaneously adapts to wide temperature variations and non-compliant cables and connectors often found in harsh commercial and industrial network operating environments.

Superior Architecture Enables Lowest Cost, Highest Volume Products

Unlike competitive devices, the SimpliPHY transceivers are manufactured in mainstream, low cost, digital CMOS processes to eliminate expensive analog process modules that limit the ability to manufacture in the most cost effective technology. Further, the SimpliPHY series delivers the lowest power consumption in the industry while utilizing this less aggressive - and less expensive - CMOS process. This architectural advantage provides a foundation for Cicada's roadmap of transceivers and System-on-Chip (SOC) solutions with even higher port densities and lower power in more aggressively scaled technologies.

VeriPHY(TM) - Expanded Software Release for N+I Las Vegas

Cicada's demonstrations at Networld+Interop 2002 will also include a new release of Cicada's original VeriPHY Link Management Software Suite. VeriPHY offers SimpliPHY customers a suite of powerful network management tools, diagnostic utilities, and a graphical user interface (GUI) to ease the installation and management of Gigabit Ethernet equipment. With the ability to quickly measure and monitor more than two dozen cable parameters such as cable length, cable quality, and bit-error-rate, equipment designers and IT managers benefit by being able to quickly pinpoint potential problems in the cable plant. VeriPHY eliminates needless and expensive equipment replacements and field returns by integrating the power and simplicity of a sophisticated hand-held cable tester in the PHY - at no cost to the systems designer.

Availability

Both the quad port CIS8204 and the single-port CIS8201 are shipping in volume.

Cicada will also have a new product announcement the week of the show. Interested persons should contact Karen Johnson at karen@cicada-semi.com.

About Cicada Semiconductor

Cicada Semiconductor is a fabless semiconductor company that designs, manufactures, and markets mixed-signal integrated circuits for the communications industry to send information faster and farther over existing copper cabling and system backplanes within Local, Wide and Storage Area Networks. Already recognized among an elite group of world-class digital communications players with a rare combination of digital and analog design experience, Cicada's mission is to be the worldwide leader in the design and development of high performance digital communications ICs. Now in full production with worldwide sales offices, Cicada's current products include two (quad-port and single port) SimpliPHY(TM) Gigabit Ethernet transceivers. For more information, go to www.cicada-semi.com, or call 512/327-3500.