Cypress Announces Industry's Highest-performance USB Microcontroller.

Business Editors/High Tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 17, 2000

New "FX" Family Provides Fast I/O Speeds And Configurable Glueless

Interfaces While Laying The Groundwork For USB 2.0

Cypress Semiconductor Corp. (NYSE:CY), the leading provider of Universal Serial Bus controllers, today announced sampling of a high-performance, 48 MHz, EZ-USB FX(TM) family capable of gluelessly attaching to practically any peripheral system; including mass storage, Home PNA (Phone Network Alliance), wireless LANs, video, DSL, cable modems, scanners, and printers.

The EZ-USB FX family expands the feature set that has made EZ-USB(TM) a popular choice for high-performance, highly-integrated USB applications, adding superfast I/O, Direct memory access (DMA), internal FIFOs and general programmable interface (GPIF). GPIF can be configured to be glueless to ASICs, DSPs, or standard interfaces such as ATAPI, UTOPIA, EPP (enhanced parallel port) wireless LAN chip sets and Home PNA chip sets. The internal FIFOs can be configured to 8- or 16-bit datapath and allow master or slave operation.

To support applications that move large amounts of "bursty" data, the EZ-USB FX has a unique DMA engine which transfers data between the peripheral interface and external buffer memory. After EZ-USB FX has transferred large amounts of data into buffer memory, the peripheral subsystem can then spend time to fetch new data. EZ-USB FX can DMA packet data from external buffer to USB, maintaining maximum USB performance possible even while the peripheral subsystem is idle. With this capability, EZ-USB FX provides the highest sustained USB performance in the market.

The CY7C646XX USB line--which will be marketed as the EZ-USB FX (Faster/Extended) family of devices--opens a variety of new USB application possibilities. With DMA capabilities, EZ USB FX has I/O burst data rates of 96 Mbytes/second. With the high-speed I/O rates, EZ USB FX also lays the groundwork for development of Cypress high-speed USB 2.0 devices later this year. USB 2.0 has a target speed of 480 Mbits, forty times faster than the 12-Mbps, full-speed USB standard.

"Designing and bringing to market the industry's highest performance USB microcontroller cements Cypress's position as the No. 1 USB supplier and marks an important milestone on the way to the high-speed transmission capabilities of USB 2.0," said Cathal Phelan, vice president of Cypress's Interface Products Division. "The FX line, which is geared to support high-performance peripherals such as DSL modems, cameras, scanners, and mass storage peripherals, expands Cypress's target market and sets the stage for our continued exponential growth in the USB market in the year 2000 and beyond."

The original EZ-USB family is built around a robust 8051 microprocessor and an SRAM-based architecture that facilitates "soft" operations, including the ability to download firmware directly from a host PC. This eliminates the need for external program memory or mask ROM. EZ-USB's smart serial interface engine (SIE) handles much of the low-level USB logic overhead, simplifying the 8051 code and freeing the processor to service the application. A "renumeration" function creates a default-USB device with predefined endpoints and alternate settings--essential to the family's soft operations. While maintaining code compatibility with EZ-USB, and many of the original family's characteristics, the new FX line adds a 48-MHz processor and enhanced I/O.

With a reputation of the easiest USB solution in the industry, Cypress has continued the same tradition in providing a development environment which allows designers to be up and running USB traffic within minutes of opening the Developer's Kit instead of weeks or months of competitive solutions. Designers can quickly test and download it into RAM without the need to burn nonvolatile memories. The Cypress Developer's Kit, CY3671, includes software tools such as the C Compiler from Keil, firmware library, firmware frameworks, source code to a USB general purpose driver, and the Cypress EZ-USB Control Panel. The EZ-USB Control Panel is a proprietary tool allowing customers to test their firmware and witness the host controller response without the need of the corresponding driver.

Cypress is the market-share leader in USB, recently passing the 20-million-unit mark in shipments. According to market research firm DataQuest (San Jose), the USB market will grow 225% in the year 2000 to a total of 85.5 million units, with a 500 million market possible in 2003. Cypress projects that its revenues from the USB business will grow more than 3x from 1999 to approximately $100 million this year.

USB market estimates do not typically include the application- and market-expanding possibilities of USB 2.0, which has a target speed of 480 Mbits/second, as defined by the USB 2.0 Promoter Group. Under its recent licensing agreement with Intel--a key driver of USB standards--Cypress gained access to technology that will facilitate early delivery of USB 2.0 products.

"There is huge potential in USB, and Cypress aims to capitalize on that potential," said Dan McCranie, Cypress executive vice president of sales and marketing.

The CY7C646XX family is sampling now, with production volumes available next month. The EZ-USB FX family consists of 7 different products in packages of 52 PQFP, 80 PQFP and 128 PQFP. The CY7C64XX parts are priced from $6.88 to $8.13 in 1,000-unit lots. Higher-volume pricing is available from Cypress at 1-800-858-1810. The Xcelerator Developer Kit, CY3671, is available immediately and priced at $495.

Cypress Semiconductor provides high-performance integrated circuit solutions "By Engineers. For Engineers.(TM)" for fast-growing companies in fast-growing markets, including data communications, telecommunications, computation, consumer products, and industrial-control. With a focus on emerging communications applications, Cypress's product lines include networking-optimized and micropower static RAMs; high-bandwidth multi-port and FIFO memories; high-density programmable logic devices; timing technology for PCs and other digital systems; and controllers for Universal Serial Bus (USB). Cypress is No. 1 in the USB and clock chip markets.

More than two-thirds of Cypress's sales come from fast-growing datacom/telecom markets and dynamic companies such as Lucent, Cisco, 3Com, Alcatel, Motorola, Ericsson, and Nortel Networks. Cypress's ability to mix and match its broad portfolio of intellectual property enables targeted, integrated solutions for high-speed systems that feed bandwidth-hungry Internet applications. Cypress aims to become the preferred silicon supplier for Internet switching systems and for every Internet data stream to pass through at least one Cypress IC.

Cypress employs more than 3,600 people worldwide with international headquarters in San Jose, California. Its shares are listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CY. More information about Cypress is accessible electronically on the company's worldwide web site at http://www.cypress.com or by CD-ROM (call 1-800-858-1810). An electronic investor forum, and other investor information, is located at http://www.cypress.com/investor/index.html.

"Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Statements herein that are not historical facts are "forward-looking statements" involving risks and uncertainties. Please refer to Cypress's Securities and Exchange Commission filings for a discussion of such risks.

Note to Editors: EZ USB, EZ USB FX, and "By Engineers. For Engineers." are trademarks of Cypress Semiconductor Corporation.