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Frontier Silicon appoints Mike McTighe as chairman as it scales up to drive mobile TV business

London, 30th November 2004: Frontier Silicon – the leading fabless manufacturer of semiconductors for digital radio/TV and consumer multimedia products – has announced the appointment of Mike McTighe (50) as non-executive chairman of its board of directors. McTighe brings with him significant experience in the mobile handset sector, which will strengthen the board and help Frontier Silicon maintain its leading position in driving the growth of television over mobile. The new chairman has experience of leading technology companies, both large and small, to success over the last 25 years, and will utilise this expertise to build upon the strong base Frontier Silicon has already established in the digital radio and TV market.

"I am delighted to welcome Mike McTighe as the company’s first chairman," said Anthony Sethill, CEO of Frontier Silicon. "He has an excellent track record in the technology sector, renowned for his outstanding strategic abilities and deep understanding of the wireless handset market. I very much look forward to working together with Mike to grow Frontier Silicon into a significant global supplier of chips for the digital radio, digital TV and emerging mobile TV markets."

McTighe was most recently chairman of Alphamosaic Ltd, where he led the successful sale of that company to Broadcom Corporation for US $125M. He has held a number of directorships, and is currently chairman of Phyworks Ltd, Corvil Ltd, Red M Communications Ltd and Via Networks, Inc. He is also a non-executive director of Pace Micro Technology plc, and Alliance & Leicester plc, and a director of London Metal Exchange Holdings Ltd. Other relevant roles held by McTighe include being a member of the technology advisory board of Apax Partners. He was previously chairman and CEO of Carrier1 International SA, and executive director and chief executive, global operations of Cable & Wireless plc. Prior to these experiences, he spent five years with Philips of the Netherlands, five years with Motorola, and 10 years with GE.

Commenting on his appointment, McTighe said, "Since being established just under three years ago, I am impressed with the market penetration that Frontier Silicon has achieved. This comes from its combination of strong consumer experience, excellent technology and good customer support infrastructure. Together with its relationships with Far East manufacturing companies, Frontier’s chips have managed to find their way into over 70 percent of DAB digital radio sets out in consumer homes. I hope to be able to support the company’s assault into mobile multimedia, video and automotive sectors too as part of its next phase of growth."

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Editor's notes: About Frontier Silicon

Frontier Silicon, winner of the PricewaterhouseCoopers hottest technology company of 2004 award, is at the forefront of the digital revolution with a range of semiconductor solutions for digital TV, digital radio and other emerging consumer multimedia products. As a fabless semiconductor business, Frontier Silicon’s core products include complete DAB modules, DVB-T solutions and the underlying system-on-chip (SoC) devices. Key customers for these products include consumer electronic, automotive entertainment and PDA/mobile phone manufacturers. In digital radio (DAB), the company’s chips are found in the world’s leading brands including Bush, Cambridge Audio, Goodmans, Grundig, Hitachi, Ministry of Sound, Philips, PURE Digital, Roberts Radio, Sharp, Sony and TEAC.