Chip Express Names Jon Sherburne as New VP of Worldwide Sales; Sherburne Brings 25 Years Experience Building Sales Organizations at Growing Companies.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 16, 2003

Chip Express, the Advanced Gate Array Cost Leader, has appointed Jon Sherburne as Vice President of Worldwide Sales. Sherburne was formerly the top senior sales executive at both Centillium Communications (Nasdaq:CTLM) and Maker Communications, where he helped guide those high-tech companies from the startup phase into market leadership positions.

At Chip Express, Sherburne will oversee worldwide sales efforts, including marketplace development, strategic account growth, and distribution management. He will develop strategies for identifying, penetrating, and managing OEM and direct accounts. He will also grow Chip Express' sales organization, expanding sales offices (in Asia-Pacific, Europe, and North America) and hiring key personnel. Sherburne will report directly to Chip Express President and CEO, Stephen McMinn.

"Jon Sherburne possesses a rare combination of persuasive sales talents, management skills, industry knowledge, and a proven track record," said McMinn. "The Chip Express executive team and board of directors are confident that Jon is well-equipped to tackle our aggressive revenue and global expansion objectives."

"I look forward to the challenge of building a global sales organization that can take Chip Express to the next level of success," said Sherburne. "The company's new family of highly refined gate arrays reduces rising mask costs, which currently present a powerful challenge to the ASIC design and production budgets of startups, as well as established OEMs and chipmakers. We will target mid-volume vertical market segments such as automotive telematics, computer peripherals, high-end consumer electronic products, industrial control, and medical equipment."

Sherburne Brings Experience in Domestic and International Sales

Jon Sherburne joins Chip Express after spending the past year as Vice President of Worldwide Sales for Cognigine Corporation, a startup company in the network processor space. Before that, he was Vice President of Worldwide Sales for leading DSL chipset vendor Centillium Communications. As the first sales employee at Centillium, Sherburne built a global team of salespeople, FAEs, and sales reps, which in two years won 108 new designs at major telecom/datacom accounts. He helped grow Centillium's revenues from $3.8M in 1999 to $159M in 2001.

At Maker Communications, a manufacturer of semiconductor ICs for communications equipment, Sherburne won over 30 designs with major telecom/datacom companies. During his two-year tenure at Maker, revenues grew from $1.2M in 1997 to $17M in 1999. Sherburne also spent nine years with VLSI Technology in various management positions, and earlier held sales and engineering positions at Advanced Micro Devices and Texas Instruments.

Sherburne has a B.S. in Physics from the University of Santa Clara, and an M.S. in Scientific Instrumentation from the University of California at Santa Barbara.

About Chip Express

Chip Express is a leading manufacturer of late-stage programmable Advanced Gate Array ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuits). The company's innovative, patented technology enables the consolidation of wafer manufacture tooling, reducing time-to-market and the cost of initial production. Advanced Gate Array devices find wide use in automotive electronics, computing, communications, consumer products, industrial control, medical equipment, and military/aerospace systems. Headquartered in Santa Clara, CA, Chip Express is a privately held corporation, founded in the U.S. in 1989. A subsidiary, Chip Express (Israel) Ltd. performs Research & Development and manages European operations.

All other products or service names mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.

This press release contains forward-looking statements based on current information available to Chip Express Corporation as of the date hereof. These statements are based on Management's current expectations and may ultimately prove to be incorrect or false. Factors which could cause future results to differ materially from the results discussed, implied, or forecasted in the forward-looking statements include delays in scheduled product availability dates (which could result from various occurrences including development or testing difficulties, software errors, shortages in appropriately skilled engineers and project management problems); the risks inherent in the commercialization of the Company's anticipated products and services; shifts in customer or market demand for the Company's anticipated products; the impact of competitive products and pricing; and possible disruptive effects of organizational changes, including retaining key personnel and coordinating operations. Chip Express Corp. assumes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release.

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