Pivotal Technologies and UMC Group Announce Joint Marketing Agreement to Provide Mixed-Signal Semiconductor IP for Systems-on-a-Chip Market

Pasadena CA, September 1, 1998 - Pivotal Technologies and UMC Group have signed a Joint Marketing and Technical Support agreement to co-market analog, RF and mixed-signal silicon IP developed for UMC Group foundry processes by Pivotal. The agreement will allow the two companies to provide the greatest value to mutual customers through compatible and complimentary services. Designs for several UMC customers have already been fabricated and test chips have been produced.

Pivotal will supply extensive support to UMC Group customers regarding its silicon-proven OptiMix line of analog, RF and mixed-signal components, including such elements as A/D and D/A converters, oscillators, phase lock loops (PLLs), operational amplifiers, temperature sensors, and many other analog interface building blocks. Also available is the OptiCore line of communications-centric hard IP cores and macrocells. The initial OptiCore offerings focus on high volume analog front-end (AFE) applications, and include xDSL and home-networking AFEs, RF wireless modem AFEs, LCD video panel products and USB/IEEE1394 physical layer transceiver products. Pivotal's IP is available for UMC's 0.5, 0.35, 0.25 and 0.18 processes.

"Mixed-signal IP plays a key role in system design," exclaimed Dr. Jim Ballingall, UMC Group Vice President, Worldwide Marketing. "The mixed-signal IP provided by Pivotal is helping customers by reducing overhead and improving product time to market."

Stephen Petilli, President of Pivotal Technologies, added, "The joining of Pivotal's expertise with UMC's vast resources will result in a powerful combination, enabling designers to access a broad base of mixed signal IP for their UMC products."

While the COT marketplace in general will benefit from this agreement, system-on-a-chip (SOC) designers will likely profit the most. Pivotal's components, already suitable for SOC designs, are being optimized for UMC Group's processes, making single-chip designs even more efficient and effective. In addition, Pivotal's OptiMix components are compatible with UMC Group's digital processes and incur no extra costs or manufacturing steps. Each is silicon-proven, making them a low risk solution that accelerates time-to-market for customers.

Pivotal Technologies, founded in 1997, is a leading provider of analog and mixed-signal semiconductor IP. Pivotal addresses the challenges of deep sub-micron analog component design through state of the art analog VLSI design techniques. These techniques include optimizing for spike immunity and power supply rejection, using differential current steering and specialized isolation techniques. All of Pivotal's IP products have been designed specifically for deep sub-micron processes.

Pivotal is headquartered at 87 E. Green St., Suite 303, Pasadena, CA 91105, (800) 896-7770.

OptiMix and OptiCore are trademarks of Pivotal Technologies.