Releases

posted on 09 June 2008 12:50

Sunnyvale, CA, June 9, 2008: SST (Silicon Storage Technology, Inc., NASDAQ: SSTI), a leader in flash memory technology, today announced a strategic plan to continue its long-standing status as a predominant supplier of Firmware Hub (FWH) BIOS memory components for Intel-based technology applications.

SST is committed to supporting embedded customers’ needs with both 8- and 16-Mbit FWH devices through 2011 and possibly beyond. These device densities are expected to address the majority of the FWH used in the Intel P6 Architecture, Intel NetBurst Architecture at the 130 nm and 90 nm processes, and the Intel Core MicroArchitecture at the 65 nm process, during that extended timeframe.

SST established itself as a leading independent supplier of FWH memory devices in 2001, less than a year after it became the first Intel licensee to implement the FWH products for Intel’s 800 Series Hub Architecture chipsets in March 2000. Although the industry has moved beyond FWH for traditional consumer PC applications where shorter product life cycles are typical, the FWH architecture continues to flourish for embedded platforms, where five- to seven-year product life cycles are the norm. With its continued support of the FWH architecture for embedded applications, SST will extend its leadership position in FWH BIOS to more than a decade.

“We’ve always been a leader in BIOS as well as a memory device partner for PC platforms. To that end, we are very pleased to be able to extend our Firmware Hub product offering for the next several years,” said Paul Lui, senior vice president, Memory and Special Products Business Unit, SST. “As the leading supplier of 8- and 16-Mbit Firmware Hub memories to the marketplace, we felt compelled to support the industry’s embedded community.”

“Intel will continue to manufacture Intel processors for embedded devices that only boot via the Firmware Hub,” said Joe Jensen, general manager of Intel’s Embedded Computing Group. “This is consistent with our commitment to support our embedded products for a minimum of seven years and we want to ensure the embedded ‘ecosystem’ of the long-life availability of Firmware Hub devices from a reliable supplier such as SST.”

The embedded application platforms for FWH include automotive infotainment systems, gaming, medical, industrial control, communications, wireless, print imaging and military/aerospace, to name a few. In a majority of those applications, product development often takes years and the resulting product life times can extend beyond a half-dozen years. Thus, customers in these arenas need to ensure that components incorporated into their embedded designs remain available and in reasonably high volume for years. With SST as the leading supplier of 8- and 16-Mbit FWH memories, today’s announcement is that much more significant for the embedded system design community.

About SST’s Firmware Hub Products

SST’s Firmware Hub flash memory products incorporate the proprietary FWH interface protocol owned by Intel Corp. and are read-compatible to the Intel 82802 Firmware Hub product. The Intel 82802 Firmware Hub is one of the chips in Intel’s 800 Series (810, 810e, 815e, 815ep, 820, 840 and 850) Hub Architecture chipsets that optimizes the performance of computer systems based on Intel’s microprocessors.

SST’s 8-Mbit and 16-Mbit FWH devices are part of the company’s 49 Series products and are based on the core feature set of SST’s MPF (Multi-Purpose Flash) series, a family that was created using the SST SoftPartition uniform sector architecture and the simple CMOS-compatible SuperFlash manufacturing process. Using the SoftPartition architecture of the uniform 4-KByte sectors and uniform 64-KByte blocks, the 8- and 16-Mbit, 49 Series FWH products allow embedded system designers to have better software granularity, which improves memory utilization.

This improved memory utilization allows designers to fit the system BIOS and video BIOS firmware in a smaller density memory array than those of typical flash memory devices without the SoftPartition capability. Therefore, the SoftPartition-based 49 Series FWH products enable the Intel 800 Series Hub Architecture chipset to enhance the system performance while reducing the overall system cost.

About Silicon Storage Technology, Inc.

Headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, SST designs, manufactures and markets a diversified range of memory and non-memory products for high volume applications in the digital consumer, networking, wireless communications and Internet computing markets. Leveraging its proprietary, patented SuperFlash technology, SST is a leading provider of nonvolatile memory solutions with product families that include various densities of high functionality flash memory components and flash mass storage products.

The Company also offers its SuperFlash technology for embedded applications through its broad network of world-class manufacturing partners and technology licensees, including TSMC, which offers it under its trademark Emb-FLASH. SST’s non-memory products include NAND controller-based products, smart card ICs and modules, flash microcontrollers and radio frequency ICs and modules. Information on SST can be found on the company's Web site at http://www.sst.com and further information about the company’s comprehensive list of product offerings can be requested via email from literature@sst.com.

^{[Formatted by Paul Warren.]}