Press Release

Alcatel Joins Open Core Protocol International Partnership

Membership Supports Open Industry Standard and Extend OCP-IP’s European Presence

PORTLAND, ORE. — April 14, 2003 — Open Core Protocol International Partnership (OCP-IP) today announced that Alcatel (Paris: CGEP.PA and NYSE: ALA), a worldwide leader in carrier-class network infrastructure solutions, is joining the organization. Membership in OCP-IP allows Alcatel’s customers to optimize design resources and shorten design cycles, which lower design costs and bring products to market faster. The membership also further extends OCP-IP’s presence in Europe.

"Open, common IP interfaces will become increasingly important as the industry continues to move toward complex SOC designs, and that is the way to reduce risk and time to market for our new SOC designs," said Thierry Pfirsch, Core Competence Manager of Alcatel Hardware Coordination. "As OCP-IP's mission is to develop a standardized socket for plugging IP cores into SOC designs, it offers the first truly open effort to make plug-and-play SOC design a reality."

OCP-IP members receive free training and support, free software tools and free documentation, enabling members to utilize their core competencies and focus on the challenges of SOC design. Utilizing OCP-IP’s free infrastructure eliminates the need to design, document and evolve a proprietary standard and support tools, freeing up valuable resources and maximizing ROI.

"We are pleased to count Alcatel among our members," said Ian Mackintosh, president of OCP-IP. "Their membership further illustrates the industry support and adoption of OCP."

About Alcatel
Alcatel provides end-to-end communications solutions, enabling carriers, service providers and enterprises to deliver contents to any type of user, anywhere in the world. Leveraging its long-term leadership in telecommunications networks equipment as well as its expertise in applications and network services, Alcatel enables its customers to focus on optimizing their service offerings and revenue streams. With sales of EURO 16.5 billion in 2002, Alcatel operates in more than 130 countries.

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. OCP-IP's Governing Steering Committee participants are: Nokia [NYSE: NOK,], Texas Instruments [NYSE: TXN], STMicroelectronics [NYSE: STM], Flextronics, [NASDAQ: FLEX], Sonics and United Microelectronics Corporation [NYSE: UMC]. OCP-IP is a non-profit corporation 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. For additional background and membership information, visit www.OCPIP.org.

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