ShareWave Wins Three CES Innovations 2001 Awards for Superior Design and Engineering.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 6, 2001

Honors Include Cresta 3 Mini-PCI Digital Radio, Multimedia-Capable

Wi-Fi(TM)Product Family, And Series 5000 (IEEE-802.11a) Wireless

Network Controllers

ShareWave, Inc., a provider of semiconductor technology for multimedia-capable wireless home networks, has received three Innovations 2001 Awards from the Consumer Electronics Association at the Consumer Electronics Show. The Cresta 3 Mini-PCI Digital Radio, the Multimedia-Capable Wi-Fi(TM) (IEEE-802.11b) Product Family, and the Series 5000 (IEEE-802.11a) Wireless Network Controllers were each recognized for outstanding design and engineering in the Home Data Networking, Wireless-Based Systems category. This is the third year running that a ShareWave digital radio design has claimed this honor.

Co-sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association and the Industrial Designers Society of America, Innovations 2001 recognizes excellence in consumer technologies. Industry experts judge the entries based on value to users, aesthetics, contributions to quality of life and innovation. ShareWave's winning products will be on display in the Silver Pavilion of the Las Vegas Convention Center and in ShareWave's booth, located in the Las Vegas Hilton (Director's Suite 473) during CES, held January 6 to 9, 2001.

"ShareWave is honored to accept these prestigious awards for our family of wireless networking products," said Jock Ochiltree president and CEO of ShareWave. "The credit goes to our in-house design team and technical engineers who worked long hours to create the first low-cost, user-friendly wireless LAN that delivers high-bandwidth multimedia content throughout the home."

ShareWave's technology creates the foundation of a high-speed wireless home network capable of communicating all types of digital content, including data, audio, voice and video, among a variety of digital devices. ShareWave is unique in its ability to send high-fidelity multimedia content - including MPEG2 video and CD-quality audio - across wireless network connections. In addition to supporting multimedia content, ShareWave's technology is also consumer-friendly. It is easier to use, more immune from common household interferers (e.g., microwave ovens and cordless phones), and capable of supporting longer range connections than other wireless networking solutions. Consumer products incorporating ShareWave's 11 Mbps technology have been announced by Panasonic and NETGEAR, and are due to ship in Q1 2001.

The ShareWave Multimedia-Capable Wi-Fi Product Family is a set of reference designs based on ShareWave's Series 2005 family of wireless network controllers and ShareWave's Whitecap(TM) 4.0 network protocol. These reference designs offer manufacturers the first networking products that are both Wi-Fi (IEEE-802.11b) compliant and capable of supporting high-fidelity multimedia content. ShareWave provides these reference designs to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) so they can, in turn, introduce end-products to the consumer market, such as residential gateways, networked set-tops, wireless NICs, networked PVRs, digital audio jukeboxes, and internet appliances.

While some wireless LAN products are only appropriate for the home, and others are only suitable for the workplace, products based on ShareWave's Multimedia-Capable Wi-Fi Product Family offer the best of both worlds - their capabilities are fully optimized for the needs of the home environment, yet they are completely interoperable with other Wi-Fi certified devices, such as notebook computers that may be brought home from work or school, or public access points in venues such as airports or hotels. This allows users to have a single, consistent method of wireless access to a local area network wherever they go.

ShareWave's Series 5000 (IEEE-802.11a) Wireless Network Controllers are a family of highly integrated chips (ASICs) that incorporate a multimedia-capable IEEE-802.11a media access controller (MAC), enabling first-to-market IEEE-802.11a solutions. IEEE-802.11a is a high-performance, 5 GHz IEEE wireless LAN standard that offers data rates of up to 54 Mbps.

In addition to an IEEE-802.11a MAC, these controllers also feature advanced network functionality such as forward error correction (FEC) for maximizing throughput and range, a high-speed packet engine with direct memory access for optimizing data flow, and an ARM processor complex for running network protocols and services.

The Series 5000 Wireless Network Controllers can be incorporated into a wide variety of networking products including Mini-PCI adapters, PCI adapters, USB adapters, PCMCIA adapters, Ethernet bridges, base stations, access points, set-top boxes and residential gateways. Each of the specific controllers is optimized for size, power, and cost, enabling manufacturers to build the widest variety of products from a single ASIC family.

The Cresta 3 Mini-PCI Wireless Radio is a standalone radio module that fits into any Mini-PCI Type IIIa socket, such as those found in notebook computers and PDAs. In addition, it can be incorporated as part of an embedded system, such as an integrated set-top or residential gateway. Mini-PCI is the newest form of interface adapter. It is extremely compact, and is rapidly becoming a standard interface, particularly in notebook and laptop computers.

By using the Cresta3 Mini-PCI radio, OEMs are capable of building a wide variety of networking products in sub-$100, credit card-size units. The design also uses aggressive power management to reduce its power dissipation to well under that of existing wireless solutions, thus reducing system-level power and cooling requirements.

About ShareWave, Inc.

ShareWave provides semiconductor technology for multimedia-capable wireless home networks. ShareWave is privately held with its headquarters in El Dorado Hills, CA. ShareWave has received funding from APV Technology Partners, Cisco Systems, Intel Corporation, KLM Capital, Kyushu Matsushita Electric Co., Ltd., Microsoft Corporation, Philips Electronics NV, SBC Communications, Inc., SOFTBANK Technology Ventures, Vulcan Ventures, Inc., and other public and private investors. ShareWave has announced partnership agreements with Cisco, Kinaare Networks, Radiata, NETGEAR and Kyushu Matsushita Electric (for products bearing the Panasonic brand name). For more information on ShareWave and our products, visit the company's web site at www.sharewave.com.

Editor's Note: ShareWave will be demonstrating products at CES at the Hilton in Las Vegas. Contact Carm Lyman at [phone] or Bob Bennett at [phone] to schedule an appointment.

ShareWave and Whitecap are registered trademarks of ShareWave, Inc. Other brand and product names are registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective holders.