Cyan Technology Launches Office in United States; Company Recruits Bill Giovino as Executive Vice President Worldwide Marketing.

Business/Technology Editors

CAMBRIDGE, U.K.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 11, 2002

Cyan Technology Ltd, UK-based developers of low-power flash microcontrollers for today's connected devices, has opened a Boston-based office to direct US sales and provide worldwide marketing direction.

Building on the strength of its second-round funding and a successful product launch, Cyan Technology is extending its market reach to ensure its communications engine is broadly accessible to developers building high-performance, low-power networked consumer devices.

By providing a complete hardware and software solution, Cyan Technology addresses a wide range of new end markets that require Internet, wireless and high-speed connectivity with a high-performance, low-power, cost-effective solution. Working in partnership with its customers, Cyan has tailored connectivity solutions by significantly enhancing a range of microcontrollers known as the eCOG family using 16-bit Harvard architecture originally developed by Cambridge Consultants Limited. A comprehensive development toolkit, complete with an assembler, verified C compiler, software simulator and in-circuit emulator/debugger helps developers address stringent time-to-market requirements.

Bill Giovino, Cyan's Executive Vice President of Worldwide Marketing and previously Executive Editor of the popular embedded-industry website Microcontroller.com, has been chartered with expanding Cyan Technology's eCOG communications solution into the United States. Giovino will also be responsible for directing worldwide marketing and third-party alliances with selected tool vendors. Over the next quarter, Giovino will be announcing Cyan's sales and distribution channels focusing on the US high-tech corridor.

"We recognize the value and strength of the US market," noted David Griffiths, CEO of Cyan Technology. "We want to ensure that eCOG1 is readily available to American developers and that developers can get the support and service they need, when they need it. Bill Giovino's experience as a design and development engineer, coupled with his marketing successes with semiconductor giants such as STMicroelectronics, Infineon, and National Semiconductor, will drive the rollout of Cyan Technology's products in the US."

Giovino began his career as an electrical engineer, designing standards-based embedded systems for military and government applications. From this foundation, he began his long semiconductor career with STMicroelectronics, first as a Field Applications Engineer, then as a Senior Marketing Engineer, where he was responsible for STMicroelectronics' penetration into the US automotive microcontroller market. From there, Giovino moved on to marketing management positions at National Semiconductor and then Infineon, where he reshaped market strategies by focusing on the development needs of the design engineer. He later extended his marketing experience into the digital signal processing segment as a DSP Product Manager at Analog Devices.

"It's an exciting time to work with Cyan, as the demand for affordable communications devices that enjoy long battery life has exploded in this last year," observed Bill Giovino. "With its low power, high performance, Flash memory, and ease of use, Cyan's connectivity solution is a developer's dream. It opens up a wide range of consumer applications ranging from PDAs and smart-card readers, to intelligent sensors and next-generation Internet-enabled appliances, all requiring high-speed embedded connectivity."

About Cyan Technology

Cyan Technology (www.cyantechnology.com) was formed in 2000 as a spin-off of Cambridge Consultants Ltd (CCL). The company enjoys competitive advantage through its advanced 16-bit technology, which is the result of ten years of research within CCL, significantly enhanced by Cyan's highly skilled engineering team to address the needs of the embedded communications market.

Within two years of Cyan's formation, the company has brought to market a low-power 16-bit flash microcontroller with real-time in-circuit emulation.

Cyan's multipurpose flash microcontrollers offer significant advantages in ease of use, price, performance, and low power consumption. This 16-bit product fills a significant gap in the market, offering the processing power required for embedded communications applications at less cost and lower power requirements than 32-bit processors, thereby reducing system cost and extending battery life. The chip's unique features make it particularly suited to hand-held battery-powered applications, such as hand-held instrumentation and web-enabled phones, plus a wide range of embedded communications devices, such as set-top boxes, Internet-enabled appliances, and intelligent sensors.

Use of Cyan's chips will enable developers of electronic products to produce goods with highly sophisticated functionality at prices previously unachievable.

First-round funding was provided by ET Capital and the Cambridge Gateway Fund, and the second round by NIF Ventures and the Cambridge Gateway Fund.

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