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Press Release
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8th January 2001, San
Jose, California
ISS
Becomes Amphion - Raises $10m in Second Round Funding:
New Non-Exec Directors Join Board
Funding accelerates expansion of leading provider of
innovative application-specific virtual components for broadband and multimedia
communications
Amphion Semiconductor, Inc. (previously known as Integrated
Silicon Systems), the leading provider of application-specific virtual
components for broadband and multimedia communications, announced today that it
has received $10 million of new investment from a syndicate led by Apax Partners
Funds. The investment will be used to accelerate the expansion of the company's
worldwide network of sales, marketing and support offices and build upon its
world-class design engineering capabilities. Amphion creates innovative IP cores
for semiconductor applications in rapidly growing consumer electronics and
communications markets: wireless, broadband, digital video, imaging, VoIP, and
G3/UMTS.
J G Doherty, Amphion's CEO commented "The company has progressed rapidly
since taking first round finance in February 1999. We have now developed and
delivered our standard component business model and have expanded to 50 people
worldwide, adding sales and support offices in Tokyo and Boston last quarter.
Our international customer base just keeps growing. The new corporate identity
is an outward expression of these accomplishments, and underscores our focus on
the increasing importance of virtual components in System-on-a-Chip
design."
Michael Risman, Director at Apax Partners added, "Amphion has a very strong
intellectual property portfolio and design technology founded on years of
world-class signal processing research undertaken at The Queen's University of
Belfast. Amphion's designs support orders of magnitude improvements in
performance compared to conventional implementations using software-programmable
DSP processors. The company has built an impressive reputation in a short period
of time and we are delighted to be supporting in its next phase of growth."
Over the last 18 months, Amphion has introduced an extensive range of
system-level semiconductor IP core solutions - product branded as ASVCs - for
real-time multimedia and broadband communications applications. Amphion's ASVC
products are designed to be the silicon cornerstones of system-on-a-chip (SoC)
designs for advanced convergence products. For example, Amphion's latest CS6650
ASVC is capable of real-time decompression of MPEG-2 video streams widely used
in a diverse range of consumer electronics and digital video broadcast products,
such as DVD players, set-top boxes, and Multimedia PCs.
Amphion's New Non-Executive Directors
As part of the new financing round, Amphion recently appointed two new
non-executive directors. Peter Magowan is Executive VP Sales and Marketing &
Director at ARM Holdings plc [LSE: ARM: & Nasdaq: ARMHY] and brings
impressive market knowledge and unparalleled experience of the successful
implementation of intellectual property (IP) based business models in the
semiconductor industry. Silicon Valley veteran Gregorio Reyes brings a wealth of
industry knowledge and managerial insight from an extensive career. He is the
former CEO & chairman of American Semiconductor Equipment Technologies and
Sunward Technologies, and is currently a non-executive director of C-Cube
Microsystems [Nasdaq: CUBE], ARC International [LSE: ARK] and a number of
private companies. Reyes and Magowan both join the Amphion board in a private
capacity unrelated to their other investments or means of employment.
About the Amphion Name
Until year-end 2000, Amphion was known as Integrated Silicon Systems Ltd, or
ISS. The change of corporate identity represents the company's commitment to
providing innovative signal processing solutions aimed at rapidly growing
markets such as wireless, broadband and Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP).
Over the last 18 months, ISS rapidly rolled out a broad range of application
specific virtual components (ASVCs) - the silicon cornerstones of
System-on-a-Chip (SoC) designs for advanced convergence products. The name
Amphion is taken from Greek mythology: Amphion, a son of Zeus, built walls
around the city of Thebes using his lyre to charm blocks of stone into
alignment. Amphion's business is providing speech, video and data processing
ASVCs - the key building blocks in System-on-a-Chip designs. Available as
off-the-shelf products, ASVCs are a major contributor to speeding the design and
development processes for customers implementing applications in SoC, ASIC and
FPGA.
About Amphion™
Amphion is the leading supplier of application-specific virtual components (ASVCs)
for multimedia and communications System-on-a-Chip (SoC) integrated circuits.
Amphion delivers video/image compression, speech/voice coding, and channel
coding solutions for consumer and communications applications. Using proprietary
techniques for direct-mapped implementations of digital signal processing
functions and algorithms in hardware, Amphion develops and licenses IP cores
that realize 10X to 1000X improvements in performance compared to conventional
implementations using software-programmable DSP processors. Amphion is a
privately-held company with corporate headquarters in Belfast, Northern Ireland,
UK and worldwide sales and marketing operations in San Jose, California. For
more information, visit the Amphion website at http://www.Amphion.com
About Apax Partners
Apax Partners is one of the worlds leading private equity investment groups.
Founded in 1972 in the United States and in Europe, Apax Partners currently has
over $7 billion under management or advice on behalf of leading institutional
investors around the world. Apax Partners pursues a balanced equity portfolio
strategy, investing in growth companies at all stages of development from
start-up to buyout in its chosen sectors, namely: information technology,
telecommunications, healthcare, media, internet, financial services and retail
and consumer products. Some of Apax Partners Funds recent technology and
telecomunications investments include Autonomy Corporation; Esprit Telecom;
Dialog Semiconductor; ARC International; Jazztel and Eyretel. The group has
investments in over 330 companies worldwide. For further information on Apax
Partners please contact Siobhan Loftus, Director of Marketing, telephone: +44
(0)20 7872 6495
Notes to Editors
Amphion, The Amphion logo, "Virtual Components for the Converging
World", "Innovation by Amphion", "The Multimedia ASVC
Company", Optima and Celerity are trademarks of Amphion Semiconductor Ltd.
All other brand names or product names are trademarks or registered trademarks
of their respective owners.
For
more information please contact:
David Mann, Amphion
UK: +44 28 9050 4040
dmann@amphion.com
Jordan Selburn, Amphion
USA: + 1 (408) 441-1248
jselburn@amphion.com
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