Silicon Image Raises $9.6 Million to Build Its Position in the Digital Flat Panel Display Market.

CUPERTINO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 15, 1998--

August Capital, Velocity Capital, and InveStar Capital Fuel Key

Technology for Transition to Digital Flat-Panel Displays

Silicon Image Inc. today announced that it has raised $9.6 million in venture funding.

Investors include existing investor August Capital and new investors InveStar Capital, and Velocity Capital. This new round of funding will be used to fuel both continued development of the company's technology and to build the company's position in the digital flat panel display market. Total investment to date is over $18 million.

"Over the next few years, sleek flat panel displays and other digital display devices can be widely adopted as the preferred way to easily view high quality images transmitted by everything from handheld, desktop, and mobile PCs to DVD players, projection systems, and television receivers," said Herbert Chang of InveStar Capital, which led this financing round.

"A key enabler for this vision is a universal, open, and standard interface which makes plugging in any of these devices to any display as easy as it is today to plug almost any telephone into a phone line. PanelLink technology has been shown to be the technology for that standard. We believe Silicon Image is at the heart of a very important new market."

Silicon Image's PanelLink(TM) technology was recently adopted by the Digital Display Working Group as the enabling technology for a universal specification to deliver high quality digital connectivity.

This working group is comprised of Compaq Computer, Dell Computer, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard Company, IBM Corp., Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp., NEC, and Silicon Image, Inc. was formed to foster rapid adoption of digital displays. PanelLink is also the underlying technology for the VESA Plug and Display (P&D) and DFP specifications.

According to Andy Rappaport, partner with August Capital: "We are very pleased about the momentum that Silicon Image and PanelLink are experiencing in the market. Between this funding, the recent adoption by the Digital Display Working Group, and prior industry adoption by virtually all leading players, we feel this market is moving well toward the goal of universal standard. With these assets as its foundation, Silicon Image can become a significant semiconductor company in an important and growing market."

Rappaport explained that, until now, because virtually all CRT's and other display devices are analog, the data transmitted to a display device has had to be converted to analog. This reduced image quality significantly increases costs to the consumer.

Digital displays achieve their highest quality and lowest cost with an end-to-end, all-digital, industry-standard link technology -- from inside the computer or consumer-electronic product, through the cable and into the monitor itself.

PanelLink technology makes possible the low-cost, high-quality, standardized, all-digital end-to-end link between computers or other digital electronics devices, and digital displays. Any computer or consumer electronic device with a PanelLink Digital output is "plug compatible" with any digital display built with any interface that uses PanelLink Digital technology.

Silicon Image, Inc. is the industry leader in high-speed, low-cost all-digital video/graphics display interface technology. The company's PanelLink technology implements the industry's only standard, open, scaleable, end-to-end, serial, all-digital physical connectivity between computers, controllers, or other sources of video and digital video display devices such as flat-panel monitors.

The PanelLink protocol has been adopted by the Digital Display Working Group, Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) for its "Plug and Display" standard and is the underlying technology of the Digital Flat-panel (DFP) standard. Silicon Image designs and markets families of low-cost IC's for use by both computer/controller manufacturers and manufacturers of flat-panel displays.

Customers include IBM, Compaq, ATI, Matrox, STB, Elsa, I/O Data, Melco, Viewsonic, Mag Innovision, Princeton Graphics, LG Electronics, Samsung, Siemens-Nixdorf, Toshiba, and others. Silicon Image, Inc., based in Cupertino, is privately held. The company's web address is www.siimage.com.

Note to Editors: All trademarks and registered trademarks are those of their respective companies.

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