SyChip Announces ViewSonic as First OEM for SyChip's WLAN6060SD 802.11b Card; ViewSonic to Add to Their Offering of Pocket PC Accessories for Wireless Connectivity.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

PLANO, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 20, 2003

WLAN Functionality Now Available for ViewSonic Pocket PC Users

with Low-Power SyChip Card; First Bundled PDA with SDIO Card 

Enables Photos to be Sent Wirelessly

SyChip, Inc., the leader in Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits (RFIC) and Chip Scale Modules (CSM) for the wireless Internet appliance market, today announced that ViewSonic(R) Corp., a worldwide visual display products leader, will be the industry's first PDA manufacturer to offer a branded wireless local area network (WLAN) accessory card design, based on the Secure Digital Input Output (SDIO) standard, with their portfolio of Pocket PC designs. These include the ViewSonic V36 and V37 devices, which support SDIO functionality either natively or through a patch upgrade on the manufacturer's Web site.

The low-power SDIO card, based on SyChip's WLAN6060SD WLAN card design, will enable ViewSonic Pocket PC users to wirelessly access e-mail and the Internet with increased battery life and with greater security levels than previously available.

The SyChip WLAN6060SD WLAN is offered as a ViewSonic-branded option to ViewSonic Pocket PC buyers to provide wireless communications for the PDA, using industry-standard 802.11b networking equipment.

The ViewSonic portfolio incorporates Pocket PCs for different requirements, including the V36, which utilizes Microsoft's Pocket PC 2003 operating system and incorporates digital camera capabilities. With its integrated 300K digital camera, the V36 enables users to take photos at resolutions up to 640x480, and send photos wirelessly, at high speeds, using an 802.11bWLAN connection.

The V37 is being offered by ViewSonic and Microsoft to customers who purchase Visual Studio.net in order to develop their own leading-edge embedded software solutions for next generation wireless devices, from Pocket PCs to wireless monitors.

"The SyChip WLAN SDIO card enables ViewSonic to serve our Developer community, which can use the V37 to develop wireless applications through Microsoft Visual Studio suite," said Marc McConnaughey, senior vice president, Visual Solutions Group, ViewSonic Corp. "Furthermore, it allows our V36 user community to realize a wireless Pocket PC for email, Web access and file/photo transfer."

The SDIO card is gaining strong support from accessory, PDA and smart phone partners, as it will enable a wide variety of devices, such as camera and cellular phones, PDAs, Point of Sale (POS) terminals and other handheld devices to access WLAN networks using a removable, very small form factor and low-power Network Interface Card (NIC).

"The wireless handheld market has reached new levels of functionality with the ViewSonic adoption of the SyChip WLAN6060SD card. The multi-purpose capabilities of the new generation of PDAs, such as the ViewSonic V36, are greatly enhanced by offering an optional SDIO WLAN card," said Moses Asom, co-founder and senior vice president of marketing and business development for SyChip.

"The SDIO market is now breaking down previous barriers with respect to handheld device designs and opening up new possibilities for wireless communications," said Ray Creech, president of the SD Card Association. "Our membership is forging new ground and a growing market for innovative SDIO products. The marriage of the ViewSonic Pocket PC portfolio with the SyChip WLAN6060SD card demonstrates how wireless functionality can be added to existing devices without the complexities of embedded wireless design. This is a significant move forward for SDIO capabilities."

"The SyChip WLAN6060SD card represents an important new direction for wireless LANs," said Craig Mathias, a principal with the wireless advisory firm Farpoint Group. "SDIO is going to be a very popular product direction for WLAN products."

A complete WinCE driver suite is offered for the SyChip WLAN6060SD card - supporting CE 3.0 and higher, Pocket PC and CE.net platforms. Palm OS5.2 drivers will be available in the first half of 2004. The card is fully Wi-Fi(R) certified, meets FCC and CE certification requirements and is available in computer retail channels through SanDisk (NASDAQ: SNDK) and Socket Communications (NASDAQ: SCKT, PSE: SOK).

The ViewSonic V36 uses Intel's XScale(TM) 300 MHz processor and includes 32MB of ROM and 64MB of SDRAM (57 user accessible) to power its 3.5 inch full-color 320x240 resolution transflective screen. At approximately one-half an inch thick and a lightweight 4.8 ounces, the product extends ViewSonic's award-winning form factor. Also included with the product is a synchronization cable to support easy updates to users' PCs.

For more information on the SyChip WLAN6060 solutions, please contact Navi Miglani at 972-202-8847 or at [e-mail].

About SyChip Inc.

SyChip designs, develops and markets Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits and Chip Scale Modules for the wireless mobile market. The company focuses on developing RF modules that are differentiated due to proprietary integration, modular architectures, and low loss Silicon technologies. As a result of the proprietary integration, world-class RF system design, proprietary multi-function ASICs, software and smart utilities, SyChip's RF designs drastically reduce component count, offer very small footprints and are easy to integrate into a mobile device. Customers benefit by significantly reducing their time-to-market, increasing performance and improving reliability of their wireless devices. More information is available at www.sychip.com

EDITOR'S NOTE: To request artwork of the SyChip 6060 SDIO WLAN card, please contact Navi Miglani [e-mail] 972-202-8900.

Windows, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows CE, CE.net are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Palm OS is a registered trademark of PalmSource, Inc. Wi-Fi is a registered trademark of the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance.