SCIENCE

MILPITAS, CA -- Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing (Nasdaq:CHRT)(SGX-ST:Chartered) and Integrated Silicon Solution, Inc. (Nasdaq:ISSI) today announced the delivery of the first production-ready customer device to utilize Chartered's 0.13-micron, all-copper technology. Chartered, reportedly one of the world's top three silicon foundries, shipped to ISSI last month the high-performance SRAM, which used Chartered's nominal 1.2 volt transistor offering. Volume production of ISSI's SRAM -- targeted for networking equipment, Internet access products, telecommunications and mobile communications systems, and computer peripherals applications -- is expected to ramp up in the second half of this year. "We are very pleased with this program, which resulted in fully functional silicon that translates into improved speed and power reduction for our customers," said Gary Fischer, president and COO at ISSI. "Chartered's understanding of the system-level requirements for communications-related products has been of benefit to us and their 0.13-micron process accommodates the range of performance and power management goals for ISSI's family of next-generation products." With this initial customer success, Chartered continues to execute to its strategy of developing manufacturing technologies tuned for system-level performance requirements. Chartered's all-copper 0.13-micron process remains on track for additional customer prototyping in the second half of this year and production in the first half of next year. In response to strong customer demand, the company is also expanding its 0.13-micron Chartered Express(TM) program to lower the cost of prototyping for devices requiring greater design density and higher operating speeds by offering multiple trains in the second half of this year. "Our 0.13-micron capabilities provide our customers silicon-proven, leading-edge technology and position us well to meet their volume production at this advanced technology process node," said Dr. John Martin, chief technology officer at Chartered. "This success with ISSI validates our capability for integrating high-performance, high-density building blocks, and enables us to deliver proven manufacturing solutions to customers using system-on-chip methods for their advanced devices." For more information visit www.charteredsemi.com or www.issi.com