SyChip Named ‘Start-Up to Watch’ by Fabless Semiconductor Association

December 15, 2003-- SyChip, the leader in in Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits (RFIC) and Chip Scale Modules (CSM) for the wireless Internet appliance market, today announced that it was named "Start-Up to Watch" at the 2003 Award Dinner of the Fabless Semiconductor Association (FSA), the global voice for fabless and hybrid semiconductor companies and their foundry and supply chain partners.

SyChip was presented the award at the Association's annual Awards Dinner Celebration on Thursday, Dec. 4, 2003 in Santa Clara, Calif. The FSA celebration recognizes fabless companies that have demonstrated excellence through their success, vision, strategy and future opportunities in the semiconductor industry.

The FSA Venture Capital Advisory Board selected the winners of the "Start-Up to Watch" award by identifying those companies that had demonstrated the likelihood of achieving the next phase of growth. With more than 800 fabless start-up companies worldwide, the VC Advisory Board determined the nominees based on the areas of innovation, management team, growth, strategic partners, market opportunity and capitalization.

"We are grateful for the recognition that we have received from the FSA, which represents our core industry peer constituency," said George Barber, president and CEO of SyChip. "Receiving this award is a great validation of SyChip's business model, core product design and execution expertise. It further underlines the value SyChip brings to its customers through the supply of fully-integrated wireless modules for the rapidly expanding handheld market."

"The FSA recognizes SyChip as a 'Start-up To Watch' because of its sustained high-level of innovation and solid management team," said Jodi Shelton, co-founder and executive director of the FSA. "SyChip has demonstrated exceptional strategic vision in building out its first product line to successfully address the wireless handheld market."

For SyChip -- which developed and is now in volume production with the industry's first secure digital (SDIO) wireless local area network (WLAN) product, the SyChip WLAN6060SDWLAN card, as well as the world's smallest fully-integrated embedded module, the WLAN6060EB -- the FSA "Start-up to Watch" award caps a year of remarkable achievement, which includes: - the delivery of product to leading channel partners, such as SanDisk (NASDAQ: SNDK) and Socket Communications (NASDAQ: SCKT, PSE: SOK), - and adding the integration of the first branded PDA SD Wi-Fi solution, with ViewSonic Corp. as the first OEM to brand SyChip's card, and - design wins in the embedded WLAN module space with major Tier 1 customers in the U.S. and Asia.

SyChip recently announced the completion of its third round of private equity funding, at $15 million. The round was led by Sierra Ventures and included existing investors 3i US, Alliance Technology Ventures, Genesis Park, Intel Communications Fund, K2 Development, Markpoint Venture Partners, Masthead Venture Partners, New Venture Partners, and Pacesetter Capital.

More information is available at www.sychip.com. For more information about the Fabless Semiconductor Association, visit www.fsa.org