AmberWave Systems Corporation Announces Strained-Silicon-on-Insulator Breakthrough.

SALEM, N.H. -- AmberWave Systems Corporation, the semiconductor industry's leading developer of strained silicon technology, today announced a breakthrough in strained silicon on insulator (SSOI) quality and manufacturability. Low manufacturing costs and high quality substrates are qualities that have historically been at odds--AmberWave Systems' breakthrough improves both simultaneously.

Counterintuitively, AmberWave significantly improved the end quality of the SSOI substrate by starting with a silicon substrate intentionally laden with "threading" defects. The presence of these initial "threading" defects - generally acceptable in limited numbers - reduces both the number of "threading" defects in the final substrate by one order of magnitude and "dislocation pileups" in the final substrate by as much as three orders of magnitude. Dislocation pileups are a different type of defect which, in contrast to threading defects, are significant impediments to device performance and yield. AmberWaves' ability to eliminate dislocation pileups therefore marks a radical advancement in the quality of SSOI substrates.

In addition to the quality improvement, this breakthrough also can be accomplished with a thinner strained silicon substrate, thereby significantly reducing growth time--the largest factor in fabrication expense. AmberWave's research demonstrated growth times of less than five minutes per wafer.

This advancement furthers the industry's belief that wafer-scale strained silicon technology will continue to offer the semiconductor industry additional generations of strained silicon enhancement beyond those currently in production today.

The research is the result of collaboration between Dr. Matthew Erdtmann and Dr. Matthew Currie of AmberWave and David Black and Joseph Woicik from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Their findings will be presented on December 1 at the 2005 Materials Research Society (MRS) Fall Meeting held in Boston, Massachusetts from November 28 - December 2, 2005.

Dr. Erdtmann will also chair the MRS Meeting Session 12 focusing on "Progress in Semiconductor Materials V - Novel Materials and Electronic and Optoelectronic Applications."

About AmberWave

AmberWave Systems Corporation (http://www.amberwave.com) leads the semiconductor industry in developing and licensing intellectual property critical to the technology for manufacturing strained silicon and other advanced semiconductor materials and semiconductor devices. The Company's strained silicon technology incorporates more than 10 years of research from MIT, AT&T Bell Labs, and ongoing research at its own facilities in the next generation of semiconductor materials, including in the area of III-V compounds. AmberWave complements its underlying intellectual property portfolio by providing a range of technical support services that enable IP licensees to rapidly convert the licensed technology to manufacturing processes. AmberWave, headquartered in Salem, NH, was named by Red Herring as one of the Top 100 Private Companies in North America for 2005. AmberWave, headquartered in Salem, NH, has raised over $66 million to date and was recently named one of the Red Herring Top 100 Private Companies in North America.