Georgia Tech to Provide UXPi-based Compliance Testing

DALLAS (February 20, 2004) - The Unified 10Gbps Physical-Layer Initiative (UXPi) today announced that Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) has joined the alliance to proliferate a common 10Gbps physical layer cross-market standard to simplify and accelerate the implementation of next-generation 10Gbps systems. A Georgia Tech research center, the Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC), will provide UXPi-based compliance testing for the characterization of multi-gigabit elements for serial communications.

Dr. Joy Laskar and Joseph M. Pettit, Professor of Electronics and director of the GEDC, will be leading Georgia Tech's UXPi research efforts. "Getting neighboring chips, boards and computers to interconnect and communicate without bottlenecks is a key challenge to ubiquitous computing and communications," says GEDC Director Laskar. "Georgia Tech's role in this alliance is to expand the industry's understanding of the next generation 10Gbps physical layer, and we'll do that, in part, by leveraging a state-of-the-art testbed with an advanced integration platform."

"UXPi is excited to start this strategic relationship with GEDC. This will provide a focal point for developing and providing testing methodology for verifying performance to UXPi-aligned standards," Says Ed Suder from Texas Instruments, and Vice Chairman of UXPi.

Interest has been growing in UXPi since five companies launched the effort in September 2002. The industry trend toward serial connectivity will reduce system costs, simplify system design and provide scalability to meet emerging bandwidth requirements. A program of the IEEE Industry Standards and Technology Organization (IEEE-ISTO), UXPi is presently comprised of the following companies and organizations:

• Acuid Corporation Ltd
• Agilent Technologies
• Applied Micro Circuits Corporation
• Altera Corporation
• ERNI Group
• Georgia Institute of Technology
• Infineon AG
• International Business Machines Corporation
• Northrup Grumman Interconnect Technology
• Northrup Grumman Winchester Electronics
• Quellan, Inc.
• Tektronix
• Teradyne, Inc.
• Texas Instruments Incorporated
• Xilinx, Inc.

UXPi´s successes will complement and contribute to existing and upcoming standardization efforts by multiple industry bodies; a broad representation of industries among member companies will multiply the reach of UXPi efforts. UXPi encourages any company with an interest in this technology to apply for membership. Additional information is available at http://www.uxpi.org.

UXPi is organized as a program under the IEEE-ISTO, which provides a legal and administrative platform on which UXPi operations can progress. UXPi plans to work with numerous contributing and adopting companies to develop, refine and make the specifications available. UXPi founding members include Applied Micro Circuits Corporation (NASDAQ: AMCC), International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM), Infineon AG (NYSE: IFX), Texas Instruments Incorporated (NYSE: TXN) and Xilinx, Inc., (NASDAQ: XLNX). Additional information about UXPi membership, activities and progress is available at http://www.uxpi.org.

The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the nation's top research universities, distinguished by its commitment to improving the human condition through advanced science and technology. The Georgia Electronic Design Center, a multi-disciplinary center at Georgia Tech, supports world-class research, active and solution-oriented industry collaboration, intellectual property generation and revenue generating commercialization efforts. Additional information about Georgia Tech and GEDC is available at http://www.gatech.edu and http://www.gedcenter.org.