National Semiconductor Gigabit Ethernet Adapter Card Reference Design Enjoys Fast Adoption by Leading Data Communication Makers.

Business Editors/High Tech Writers

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 12, 2001

Best Combination of Power Consumption and Price Fuels Growth of

Gigabit Ethernet Market, Setting National Apart from Competition

Delivering its promise of driving the Gigabit to the desktop, National Semiconductor Corporation (NYSE:NSM) today announced that the industry's first 10/100/1000 Mbps Gigabit-over-copper adapter card reference design has been adopted by a number of leading data communications manufacturers worldwide such as Asante, D-Link, Linksys, NETGEAR and SMC Networks.

National's Gigabit Ethernet adapter-card reference design provides full compatibility with the existing 10/100 network, providing a scalable migration path from Ethernet and Fast Ethernet to Gigabit Ethernet performance with the lowest power consumption at an affordable price. With Gigabit Ethernet and the processing power of 1GHz processors in workstations and desktops, network bandwidth and efficiency will be maximized. Customers have adopted National's low-power, low-cost Gigabit NIC reference design into their own Gigabit-over-copper NIC offerings.

"National's complete Gigabit NIC solution enables us to provide our customers with the latest in LAN technology," said Mark Merrill, vice president of engineering and chief technology officer at NETGEAR. "Our alliance with National will enable us to expand our presence into the Gigabit-over-Copper market with both switch and adapter products. Gigabit to the desktop is an exciting technology and National is helping to accelerate it."

"National Semiconductor has enabled us to come to market quickly with a highly cost-effective solution for desktop applications that require high throughput in a LAN," stated Tony Stramandinoli, Director of Product Marketing for SMC Networks. "National will help us deliver our solution, quickly with the best combination of price, performance and reliability to meet our growing customer demand."

Combining the DP83861 Enhanced Gig PHYTER(TM) transceiver, the DP83820 and DP83821 Gig MAC network interface controllers and a complete suite of software drivers, National is the only vendor that offers both the 32- and 64-bit network interface cards (NIC) with the lowest power. With 1000 Mbps, this reference design enables Gigabit-over-copper over existing Category 5 cabling which makes up the majority of the installed network in use today. This allows businesses to exploit the installed infrastructure and to refrain from making huge investments in expensive optical gear for high-speed networks.

The Gigabit Ethernet market will grow at a rate of more than 300 percent per year with estimated 50 million network connections shipping in 2004, according to Cahners In-Stat, a market research firm.

"The wide acceptance of National's Gig NIC reference design clearly indicates our leadership in driving Gigabit to the desktop," said Gobi Padmanabhan, senior vice president of Network Products Group at National. "Our proven network technology and the unique combination of the Gig PHYTER and Gig MAC with the lowest power consumption at an affordable price has set us apart from competition in this growing Gigabit-over-copper market."

Offering both 64- and 32-bit, 66 and 33 MHz bus speeds to optimize the performance of server's and desktop's PCI slots, the adapter-card reference design features:

-- Adapter fault tolerance, PCI hot plug/active PCI

-- Easy, cost-effective migration to Gigabit over copper

-- Lowest power Gigabit performance and flexibility

-- Adaptive load balancing, link aggregation, IEEE 802.3ad

-- Ensured broad compatibility and reduced network complexity.

National's Gig NIC reference design supports all major network operating systems: Microsoft Windows NT(R) 4.0, Windows(R) 95, 98, 2000, Windows Millennium, Novell Netware 4.2 and 5, Sun Solaris(TM), SCO Unixware(R), and Linux(TM).

"National is well poised to take the leadership in the fast growing Gigabit Ethernet market segment," said Venkatesh Shan, director of Gigabit Network Products at National Semiconductor. "Our large base of customers validates our commitment to being an one-stop shop for all network applications at a lower price."

About Gig MAC Network Interface Controller

The DP83820 and DP83821 are single-chip 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet controllers for the PCI bus. Targeted at high-performance adapter cards and motherboards, they fully implement the v2.2, 66 MHz, 32- and 64-bit PCI bus interface for host communications with power management support. (http://networks.national.com)

About Gig PHYTER Transceiver

The DP83861 is a full feature Physical Layer transceiver with integrated PMD sublayers to support 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX and 1000BASE-T Ethernet protocols. Manufactured with the 0.18-micro process technology, it is designed for easy implementation of 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet LANs. (http://networks.national.com)

Pricing

The combined Gig PHYTER and Gig MAC chipset is priced at $50 in OEM quantities.

About National Semiconductor

National Semiconductor is the premier analog company driving the information age. Combining real-world analog and state-of-the-art digital technology, the company is focused on the fast growing markets for wireless handsets; information appliances; information infrastructure; and display, imaging and human interface technologies. With headquarters in Santa Clara, California, National reported sales of $2.1 billion for its last fiscal year and has about 10,500 employees worldwide. Additional company and product information is available on the World Wide Web at www.national.com.

National Semiconductor is a registered trademark and Gig PHYTER is a trademark of National Semiconductor Corporation. All other brand or product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.