ZiLOG Inc. Announces Winner of Worldwide 'Driven to Design' Contest; Z183 Microcontroller Generates Worldwide Interest.

Business Editors & High-Tech Writers

CAMPBELL, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 10, 2001

ZiLOG Inc., the Extreme Connectivity Company, and Circuit Cellar Inc., co-sponsors of the worldwide "Driven to Design" contest, today announced the grand-prize winner of the most innovative and creative use of ZiLOG's Z183 microcontroller. ZiLOG will award a BMW Z3(TM) Roadster, or its cash equivalent, to the winner at this week's Embedded Systems Conference (ESC).

ZiLOG will demonstrate its eZ80 and Z183 Webservers and its wireless technology at ESC, April 10-13 (Booth 936, Moscone Center, San Francisco).

The Circuit Cellar-appointed panel of judges chose a design by Robert Morrison of Star, Idaho, for its ability to leverage the Z183 capabilities in a creative peripheral that clearly identified a market need.

"The judges looked at all of the projects and rated them based on five categories: Technical Merit, Originality, Cost Effectiveness, Utility/Applicability, and Efficiency of Design. After the judges turned in their marks, we calculated the totals and averaged them out. When the math is done, the project with the biggest pile of points wins the Big Prize," said Rob Walker, Managing Editor of Circuit Cellar magazine.

ZiLOG expanded its world-renowned Z80 family with the Z183 (Z80S183), a powerful mixed-signal microprocessor that may be used in a range of 8-bit applications. The CPU of the Z183 improves Z80 execution efficiency, while still providing full backward compatibility with existing ZiLOG Z80 devices. The Z183 also allows customers to implement an embedded Webserver that supports analog and digital data streams for Internet connectivity.

Able to address up to 1Mbyte of memory, the Z183 provides the bandwidth necessary to perform the complicated tasks of today's command, control and Internet protocol processing. The hardware and software solution is designed for applications such as industrial control, factory automation, remote monitoring, electronic transactions and other command and control functions communicating via local and wide area networks.

The contest sought the most innovative and creative use of ZiLOG's high-performance Z183. Following is the list of winners and their designs:

First Place

The First Place prize of a BMW Z3 two-year lease ($20,000 cash value) and $500 cash was awarded to Robert Morrison of Idaho, for his Multi-Protocol Logic Probe design using the Z183. With only three buttons, the MultiProtocol Logic Probe provides multiple analyzer functions in a compact instrument that can be held like a large pen. At roughly 1.5 inches wide and 6 inches long, it can quickly probe and save hundreds of waveforms in its 512-KB memory. "The Z183 has one of the faster, easy-to-use ADC and DAC functions on a microcontroller chip," he said.

Second Place

The Second Place prize of a 53-inch HDTV and $500 cash was awarded to Robert Lacoste of France, for his eZ-Stunt design. The eZ-Stunt platform is a $15 toy RC car whose miniature controller board is built around a Z183. "The Z183 mixed-signal processor is a good choice for this kind of embedded system control project and, in particular, for a flexible platform like eZ-Stunt. Another big advantage is its Z80 compatibility, which allowed me to use a freeware C compiler. This point was mandatory for such an educational application," Lacoste said.

Third Place (Tie)

A Third Place tie was awarded to two winners.

One Third Place prize of a Portable DVD Player and $500 cash was awarded to Bruce Pride of New Hampshire for his Data by Z-mail using the Z183. The Data by Z-mail system is a bench-top device that reads analog and digital data from a UUT (unit under test) every hour and sends that data via email and local RS-232, allowing an engineer to monitor UUT data from any place in the world. "I would choose the Z183 processor over other 8-bit solutions due to its mixed-signal capability, its numerous other internal peripherals and RAM, its high performance Z180 core and its ability to have other devices connect to its bus," Pride said.

A Second Third Place prize of a Portable DVD Player and $500 cash was awarded to Charles Fricker of Florida for his DMX512 Dimmer using the Z183. The design dims multiple lights and interfaces to an existing control system, eliminating costly noise filtering and extending the life of the lights by reducing thermal shock. "The Z183 is perfect for my DMX dimmer because of the POG, parallel ports, internal RAM, high speed serial port with break detection, and the DMA channels. By using this processor I was able to reduce the number of parts and the size of my board drastically," Fricker said.

About ZiLOG Inc.

ZiLOG, the Extreme Connectivity Company, designs, manufactures and markets semiconductor micro-logic devices for the growing communications and embedded control markets. Headquartered in Campbell, Calif., ZiLOG employs approximately 1,300 people worldwide. ZiLOG maintains design centers in Campbell; Austin, Texas; Ft. Worth, Texas; Nampa, Idaho; Seattle, Wash.; and Bangalore, India, a worldwide customer service center in Austin, advanced manufacturing in Nampa and test operations in Manila, Philippines. www.zilog.com

Note to Editors: ZiLOG is a registered trademark of ZiLOG Inc. in the United States and in other countries. "Extreme Connectivity Copyright ZiLOG 1999". All other product and or service names mentioned herein may be trademarks of the companies with which they are associated.

Some statements contained in this press release that are not historical facts may be forward-looking statements subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause ZiLOG's actual results and financial position to differ materially. Certain of these risks -- including Dependence on New Products and Technologies, and Production Yields and Manufacturing Risks, and Competition -- are discussed more fully in the Company's filings with the SEC, including its Registration Statement on Form S-1, Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Reports on form 10-Q. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements that speak only as of the date hereof.