Press Release
Tower Semiconductor Joins Open Core Protocol International Partnership
Membership Supports Open Industry Standard to Help Tower Customers in Design Reuse and Shorter Design Cycles
PORTLAND, ORE. — November 4, 2002 — Open Core Protocol International Partnership (OCP-IP) today announced that Tower Semiconductor LTD (Nasdaq: TSEM; TASE: TOWER) is joining the organization. As a pure-play independent wafer foundry that manufactures integrated circuits and provides complementary manufacturing services and design support, membership in OCP-IP allows Tower’s customers to shorten design cycles and bring products to market faster.
“The value an industry standard socket holds for easing the process of complex system-on-chip (SOC) design by promoting IP core resuability and reducing design time, risk, and manufacturing costs for SOC designs is clear,” said John O’Boyle, worldwide director of strategic marketing for Tower Semiconductor. “OCP-IP works to address these issues, and we wholeheartedly support its efforts.”
“We are proud to count Tower among our members,” said Ian Mackintosh, president OCP-IP. “Tower’s membership, along with our other foundry members, illustrates support of a complete industry socket standard that everyone can use, regardless of specific on-chip architecture or processor cores.”
About Tower Semiconductor LTD
Tower Semiconductor LTD is a pure-play independent wafer foundry established in 1993. The company manufactures integrated circuits with geometries ranging from 1.0 to 0.18 microns; it also provides complementary manufacturing services and design support. In addition to digital CMOS process technology, Tower offers advanced non-volatile memory solutions, mixed-signal and CMOS image-sensor technologies. To provide world-class customer service, the company maintains two manufacturing facilities: Fab 1 has process technologies from 1.0 to 0.35 microns and can produce up to 20,000 150mm wafers per month. Fab 2 features 0.18-micron and below process technologies, including foundry-standard technology, and will offer full production capacity of 33,000 200mm wafers per month. The Tower Web site is located at www.towersemi.com.
About OCP-IP
The OCP International Partnership Association, Inc. (OCP-IP) was formed 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. In addition to Sonics, Inc., the inventor of the OCP technology, OCP-IP’s founding members and intial Governing Steering Committee participants are: Nokia [NYSE: NOK], Texas Instruments [NYSE: TXN], MIPS Technologies [NasdaqNM: MIPS], and United Microelectronics Corporation [NYSE: UMC]. OCP-IP is a non-profit corporation focused on 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.
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