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Frontier Silicon announces new distributors for multimedia devices

London, UK - May 29, 2002 - Today Frontier Silicon, a fabless semiconductor business whose core products include system-on-chip (SoC) devices for Digital TV, Digital Radio and other emerging consumer multimedia products announced its appointment of new distributors for the Asian market. New distributors appointed for Frontier's market leading processor offering include Sanshin (Japan), LEC Electronic Components (China), Soanar (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand) and Apache (Taiwan).

Says Anthony Sethill, CEO, Frontier Silicon: "Frontier's Chorus digital audio processor has already positioned us at the forefront of the digital radio revolution. Our customers will be the first to market with low-cost, high-feature, DAB enabled products. We expect to find similar success in the digital TV market. The appointment of a number of proven and respected sales and technical support representatives, will enable us to expand the reach of our technologies and build on our initial design win success's of the previous six months."

Japan
Sanshin will represent Frontier Silicon in Japan, providing technical support to customers and distributing the Frontier Chorus™ DAB and digital audio processor. Sanshin is a semiconductor distribution company, with annual sales of over US$2 billion, which already supports major consumer electronics companies including Sony, Toshiba, Sharp, and Nintendo.

China
LEC Electronic Components will represent Frontier Silicon in China and Hong Kong. LEC Electronic Components Ltd is a long established semiconductor distribution company. With its team of application engineers, LEC provides technology solution products to OEM/ODM customers in Hong Kong and China.

Singapore
Soanar has been appointed to cover Singapore. Soanar is part of the Hagemeyer Asia Pacific Electronics group, a pan-regional Specialist Distributor of electronic components, subsystems, and associated products. Soanar concentrates on a range of semiconductor, passive and electromechanical products from some of the world's best-known manufacturers and provides market coverage via sales offices in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.

Taiwan
Apache has been appointed to represent Frontier Silicon in Taiwan.
Apache Communication Inc. is a value-added electronic component distributor and offers a design service as well as high quality sales and marketing personnel with experience from many large, well-known electronics organisations.

Frontier Silicon has already appointed sales and technical support representatives including Ultimate Marketing (UK), Techno Rep (France, Netherlands) and Iovox (Korea).

Commenting on the appointments Frontier Silicon CEO Anthony Sethill said: "We are already shipping digital radio devices to the market, we have a number of significant design wins under our belt, and we are now able to deliver excellent levels of service and logistical support in all the major Far Eastern markets."

-ENDS-

Editor's Notes

Frontier Silicon has a new approach to highly integrated system-on-chip (SoC) silicon that will enable mass-market penetration of digital multimedia technology using advanced multi-threaded processor designs licensed from Imagination Technologies. Frontier's Chorus digital audio processor is shipping now, and Chorus Evaluation Systems are being used by a number of manufacturers worldwide. Complete Chorus baseband RF modules will be available for shipping later this summer (2002) and a single chip Digital TV solution, expected to enable lowest cost digital TV products, will be completed in the second half of 2002.

Mass-market products using the Chorus processor will be available for consumers in Q2/Q3 2002 from VideoLogic and Goodmans, with further consumer products to be announced. Products using Chorus will include a stand-alone portable DAB radio, portable CD radio unit, hi-fi micro system, both in-car and hi-fi tuner products and a DVD player with DAB.

About Frontier Silicon

Operating at the frontiers of the digital revolution Frontier Silicon is a fabless semiconductor business whose core products include system-on-chip (SoC) devices for Digital TV, Digital Radio and other emerging consumer multimedia products. Frontier's key customers include consumer electronic, automotive entertainment and PDA/mobile phone manufacturers.