MIT's Leading Networking Expert Joins Raza Foundries as Chief Scientist; Dr. Kai-Yeung (Sunny) Siu Will Guide Acceleration of Broadband Networking and Communications Start-Ups.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 2, 2000

Raza Foundries, Inc., the premier broadband networking and communications foundry, announced the appointment of Dr. Kai-Yeung (Sunny) Siu as Chief Scientist. On leave from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Dr. Siu is an Associate Professor and holds the Alex d'Arbeloff Career Development Chair. A leading authority in broadband communications, Dr. Siu will guide Raza Foundries Partner Companies and Raza Foundries in the most promising and innovative areas of optical and wireless networking technology.

Raza Foundries builds and operates leading-edge broadband networking and communications partner companies to advance the Internet infrastructure. In addition to funding, Raza Foundries applies world-class domain expertise, best-practices management methods, and its Fast Track(TM) engineering methodology to accelerate time-to-market and company success. Currently, Raza Foundries is working with 10 Partner Companies in broadband networking and communications.

With more than 100 research papers published in the areas of optical networking, Internet routing and wireless communications, Dr. Siu also served as a consultant for major Internet equipment vendors and service providers worldwide, including Cisco Systems, Lucent Technologies Inc., Sprint Corporation, NEC Corporation, and NTT Corporation.

"Nearly every company seeking leadership in the networking industry has tapped into Dr. Siu's wealth of knowledge and vision," said S. Atiq Raza, Chairman and CEO of Raza Foundries. "We are extremely fortunate to now be able to apply that expertise across a number of Raza Foundries Partner Companies to ensure their products are state-of-the-art and to accelerate their development and time-to-market."

At MIT Dr. Siu was the research director of the MIT Auto-ID Center, an industry-funded center that develops next-generation automatic identification systems with e-commerce applications. He is also affiliated with the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and with the d'Arbeloff Laboratory for Information Systems and Technology of Mechanical Engineering. Prior to MIT, Dr. Siu was an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Siu received a National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award in 1993, the UC Irvine Distinguished Assistant Professor Award in 1995, the IEEE Browder J. Thompson Memorial Prize Paper Award in 1997, and the Best Paper Award of the SPIE Conference on All-Optical Networking in 1998.

Dr. Siu received his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, and his B.S. degree (summa cum laude) in mathematics and computer science from New York University, New York, NY, and the B.Eng. degree (summa cum laude) in Electrical Engineering from The Cooper Union, New York, NY.

About Raza Foundries

Raza Foundries is the premier broadband networking and communications foundry. We use our revolutionary Metacompany(TM) approach to build and operate leading-edge broadband networking and communications Partner Companies to advance the Internet infrastructure. More than a venture capital firm or an incubator, Raza Foundries provides a long-term commitment, world-class resources, Best-Practices Management and our Fast Track(TM) Engineering Methodology to accelerate the growth and success of each Partner Company. We have chosen the name 'Foundries' to communicate and emphasize this differentiation.

By providing these capabilities and focusing exclusively on broadband networking and communications, the underpinning of all Internet capability, Raza Foundries Partner Companies are built from the start to be long-lived, high-value, high-intellectual property companies in high barrier-to-entry markets. Raza Foundries was incorporated in 1999 and is backed by Raza Foundries affiliate Benchmark Capital, as well as Technology Crossover Ventures and Bowman Capital Management. More information on Raza Foundries is available at www.razafoundries.com.