Garrett Garrettson Appointed to Board of Catalyst Semiconductor, Inc.

Business Editors

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 24, 2003

Catalyst Semiconductor (NASDAQ:CATS) a developer and marketer of programmable products used in telecommunications, networking systems, computation, automotive, industrial and consumer markets, announced today that Garrett A. Garrettson has been appointed to the company's board of directors, effective February 25, 2003, and will serve on the board's audit and compensation committees. Mr. Garrettson has extensive expertise in the areas of semiconductors and thin film technology. He succeeds Cynthia M. Butitta, who has served as an outside director since June 2000 and has resigned due to the press of other business obligations.

Since 2000 Mr. Garrettson has served as the president and chief executive officer of ClairVoyante Laboratories, which develops and licenses foundational technology to the flat panel display industry. He was chairman of the board of Spectrian Corporation, a leading supplier of RF power transistors and amplifiers for wireless communications, until it was sold to Remec in December 2002. He served as president and chief executive officer of Spectrian from 1996 to 2000. Prior to Spectrian he was president and CEO of Censtor Corporation, which developed designs and processes for ultra - miniature contact recording heads and contact-durable thin film media, until it was sold to Read Rite. Before Censtor Mr. Garrettson served in several vice presidential positions with Seagate Technology, where he was responsible for business development, strategic marketing & product strategy, and technology R&D, after managing the Minneapolis disc drive operations. From 1986 to 1989, Mr. Garrettson served as vice president of R&D for the Imprimis Technology subsidiary of Control Data, where he was responsible for thin-film head and disc development.

Mr. Garrettson began his career in 1964 as a scientific programmer at IBM's Scientific Center in Palo Alto. In 1973, he joined Hewlett Packard Laboratories as department manager, where he developed photoconductors for the first laser printer, a complete prototype X-ray lithography system and the first thermal ink jet heads using silicon micro-machining processes. From 1979 to 1986, he served as a Laboratory Director in Hewlett Packard Laboratories, where he completed the development of three leading edge direct-write and mask-making electron beam lithography systems, a 0.25 micron gate process used in HP's Microwave Technology Center, and multichip module packaging technologies.

He received a B.S. and a M.S. in Engineering Physics in 1966, and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering (Nuclear Division) in 1969, all from Stanford University. From 1969 to 1973, he was an assistant professor in physics at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., while serving as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy.

About Catalyst Semiconductor

Founded in 1985, Catalyst Semiconductor, Inc. is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. The Company is a developer and marketer of programmable products used in telecommunications, networking systems, computation, automotive, industrial and consumer markets. The Company designs and markets a broad range of programmable products including Flash Memories, Parallel and Serial EEPROMs with I2C, SPI and Microwire interfaces, NVRAMs, Digitally Programmable Potentiometers, Microcontroller Supervisory circuits and other programmable Mixed Signal products. Typical applications for the Company's products include optical networks, modems, wireless LANs, network cards, PC BIOS, DIMM modules, cellular telephones, digital satellite box receivers, set-top boxes and Internet routers. Catalyst's Quality Management System is ISO 9001 certified. Additional information about Catalyst Semiconductor is available on the Company's web site at www.catalyst-semiconductor.com.

Except for those statements that report the Company's historical results, the statements being made are forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements is contained under the heading "Certain Factors That May Affect the Company's Future Results of Operations" listed from time to time in Catalyst's SEC reports including but not limited to the report on Form 10-K for the year ended April 30, 2002, and to the reports on Form 10-Q for the quarters ended July 31, 2002, October 31, 2002, and January 31, 2003.

Editor Notes:

1. Trademark notices: DPP is a trademark of Catalyst Semiconductor. I2C is a registered trademark of Philips Corporation. SPI is a trademark of Motorola, Inc. Microwire is a trademark of National Semiconductor.