STMicroelectronics, Inc. Joins Open Core Protocol International Partnership -- OCP-IP --; New Governing Steering Committee Member Will Further Enhance OCP-IP Working Groups.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

PORTLAND, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 25, 2003

Open Core Protocol International Partnership (OCP-IP), the association providing a common standard for intellectual property core interfaces, or sockets, that facilitate "plug and play" SoC design, today announced STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM), has joined the organization. ST is a Governing Steering Committee (GSC) member, and is a participant in OCP-IP's Working groups. As a member of the GSC, ST joins a highly talented team drawn from GSC members including Nokia, Texas Instruments, Sonics Inc., United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC), and other industry leading companies. Working groups are charged with the task of developing enhancements and support for OCP, and addressing the future needs of the membership in the use of the specification. The group recently announced the availability of the OCP 2.0 Specification Release Candidate.

"Standardization of a socket interface and its broad adoption in the semiconductor industry are key factors to enable development of reusable IP and IP integration in complex SoC products," said Aldo Cometti, director of development at ST and OCP-IP GSC member. "We count on this to further evolve our system level designs and to reduce complex SoC product design cycles and time-to-market. We look forward to working with OCP-IP members in contributing to the development of this IP socket standard."

OCP-IP members, in particular, receive free training and support, free software tools, and free documentation, enabling members to focus on the challenges of SoC design. Leveraging OCP-IP's free infrastructure eliminates the need to design, document, train and evolve a proprietary standard and support tools, freeing up critical resources for the real design work and providing enormous cost savings.

"We welcome ST to the GSC. They clearly understand the need for an industry socket standard for intellectual property cores that are not limited to application specific usage," said Ian Mackintosh, president of OCP-IP. "The collective expertise of both our existing and new GSC members, gives us unequalled talent that adds to our ability to provide user-driven enhancements to OCP technology and support for the future."

For more information on OCP-IP please visit www.ocpip.org. For more information on STMicroelectronics, visit www.st.com

About OCP-IP

The OCP International Partnership Association, Inc. (OCP-IP) was announced in December 2001 to promote and support the open core protocol (OCP) as the complete socket standard that ensures rapid creation and integration of interoperable virtual components. OCP-IP's Governing Steering Committee participants are: Nokia (NYSE: NOK,), Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN), ST Microelectronics (NYSE: STM), United Microelectronics Corporation (NYSE: UMC), Sonics, and other industry leading companies. OCP-IP is a non-profit corporation delivering the first fully supported, openly licensed core-centric protocol that comprehensively fulfills system-level integration requirements. The OCP facilitates IP core reusability and reduces design time and risk, along with manufacturing costs for SoC designs. For additional background and membership information, visit www.OCPIP.org.