Conexant Names Bill Giudice Vice President and General Manager of Broadband Internetworking Systems.

Business Editors and High-Tech Writers

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 6, 2000

New Unit To Focus On Semiconductor Solutions For Sophisticated WAN

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Infrastructure

Conexant Systems Inc. (Nasdaq:CNXT) has appointed Bill Giudice, 45, to the position of vice president and general manager of Broadband Internetworking Systems (BIS), a new business unit formed within Conexant's Network Access Division (NAD).

In his new role, Giudice is responsible for the company's strategic participation in the market for sophisticated wide area network (WAN) communications processing -- a significant opportunity created by the explosion in broadband Internet traffic and multiservice provisioning. Reporting to Raouf Halim, senior vice president and general manager of NAD, Giudice will manage strategy, execution and business performance for BIS.

"This is a strategic move for us at NAD, demonstrating our commitment to developing increasingly sophisticated system-level chipsets that can address the growing need for intelligent information processing within the emerging broadband optical infrastructure of the Internet," said Halim. "Bill's proven leadership in delivering higher-protocol-layer solutions from his pioneering work with network processors at Maker Communications, makes him the ideal choice for driving our strategic thrust in development and integration for Layer 2 and above WAN solutions that are in such great demand by our customers."

BIS will focus on the burgeoning market for semiconductor solutions for sophisticated higher level protocol processing -- products that address functions at Layer 2 and above within the hierarchy of the OSI Reference Model(a). BIS will address this market with a variety of broadband network access product initiatives, including network processors, as well as devices for high-level data link control (HDLC), asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) segmentation and reassembly (SAR), inverse multiplexing for ATM (IMA), and dynamic packet transport (DPT).

Giudice, who has more than 20 years of experience in the communications and semiconductor industries, co-founded Maker Communications Inc., the industry's leading developer of network processors, where he held the post of chairman and CEO prior to Maker's acquisition by Conexant Systems in March 2000. Leveraging his knowledge of the networking marketplace and the customer issues involved in bringing new technologies to market, Giudice grew Maker into a systems-oriented company that pioneered the network processor market and held a dominant position in several segments of the ATM chip market.

Prior to co-founding Maker Communications in 1994, Giudice spent nine years at LSI Logic where he held a number of senior positions in sales and marketing, including general manager of LSI's Northern U.S. region. Giudice has also served in the sales and marketing organizations of the world's leading technology and communications companies including Hewlett-Packard Company and AT&T.

Giudice holds a bachelor of science in electrical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

About Conexant Systems

With a revenue run-rate of approximately $2 billion per year, Conexant is the world's largest independent company focused exclusively on providing semiconductor solutions for communications electronics. With more than 30 years of experience in developing communications technology, the company draws upon its expertise in mixed-signal processing to deliver integrated systems and semiconductor products for a broad range of communications applications. These products facilitate communications worldwide through wireline voice and data communications networks, cordless and cellular wireless telephony systems, personal imaging devices and equipment, and emerging cable and wireless broadband communications networks. The company aligns its business into five product platforms: Network Access, Wireless Communications, Digital Infotainment, Personal Imaging, and Personal Computing. Conexant is a member of the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 Indices. For more information, visit Conexant at www.conexant.com.

(a) The Open Systems Inerconnection (OSI) Reference Model is an internationally accepted framework of standards for communication between different systems made by different vendors. The OSI Model subdivides overall data communications processes into seven functional layers, each of which performs a specific data communications task with increasing levels of sophistication: 1) Physical Layer, 2) Link Layer, 3) Network Layer, 4) Transport Layer, 5) Session Layer, 6) Presentation Layer, and 7) Application Layer.