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KUCHING, Sarawak, Malaysia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 25, 2001--1st Silicon (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd. announced a partnership agreement with Virtual IP Group Inc., a design foundry providing intellectual property (IP) cores and deep-submicron Integrated Circuit (IC) design services. With design center locations in Sunnyvale, California and Hyderabad, India, Virtual IP Group is able to provide round-the-clock coverage to customers targeting designs for 1st Silicon's semiconductor fabrication. Earlier this year, Virtual IP Group validated a front-to-back design flow with three different designs and completed a successful tapeout using 1st Silicon's foundry-specific I/O library, cell library and SRAM compiler. The partnership enables customer access to proven COT tapeout resources using 1st Silicon's libraries and semiconductor processes.

Mr. Claudio G. Loddo, 1st Silicon CEO, remarked, ``1st Silicon is a pure play foundry that focuses on core competency in wafer manufacturing. We partner with IP and design service experts to best serve current and future customers in their product design and development. Principal among these, are the services resulting from our relationship with Virtual IP Group. Virtual IP Group's superior design services and IP solutions with 1st Silicon's dedicated application engineering support, will help our customers see their circuit ideas and innovations materialize into working silicon with ease. ''

``Virtual IP Group allows our customers to access expert design development help as well as embedded core solutions compliant with many of the popular open standard bus architectures. Virtual IP Group can provide seamless interfaces and a family of IP peripherals that include USB, PCI, UART, Ethernet and memory controller functions plus other important elements for system-on-chip (SOC) development.''

Virtual IP Group COO, Mr. Joseph Hong, added, ``We value our partnership with 1st Silicon, a leading silicon foundry. With a portfolio of 80+ IP cores and logic as well as physical design teams covering two major continents, our joint customers have access to a proven SOC solution. Both 1st Silicon and Virtual IP Group are dedicated totally to customer service and support. Neither company sell chips. The proprietary nature of our customers' designs remain un-compromised,'' Hong concluded.

About Virtual IP Group.

Virtual IP Group was established in 1994. It is a leading design foundry providing intellectual property (IP) development, licensing and integration services as well as front end and back end design services. The company offers a comprehensive library of silicon-proven, synthesizable intellectual property cores for implementation in FPGA, ASIC and COT design platforms. In March 2000, ZiLOG Inc. purchased a 20-percent equity stake in Virtual IP Group and QualCore Logic Ltd., an affiliate of Virtual IP Group located in Hyderabad, India. For additional information, visit www.virtualipgroup.com or call 408/733-3344.

About 1st Silicon (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd.

1st Silicon is a dedicated semiconductor foundry founded in 1998 by the Malaysian State of Sarawak. 1stSilicon's 200mm wafer fab has a capacity in excess of 30,000 wafers per month when fully ramped. The Company has started volume production with 0.25um digital and mixed signal CMOS technology in Q1 2001, and has introduced its 0.18um process. 1st Silicon's customers include Integrated Device Manufacturers and Fabless Semiconductor companies from the US, Japan, and Asia. The Company has its headquarters in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia, and a US registered subsidiary corporation located in San Jose, California. Please visit 1st Silicon's homepage at www.1stsilicon.com for more information.

NOTE: ``1st Silicon'' and the 1st Silicon logo are trademarks belonging to 1st Silicon (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd.

     1st Silicon (America) Inc.
     S.Y. Tan-Stahel, 408/943-8131
     Facsimile: 408/943-8135
     sytan-stahel@1stsilicon.com
     www.1stsilicon.com
         or
     1st Silicon (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd.
     Jane Ha or Barbara Dubah Jabu, +60 82 354 888
     Facsimile: +60 82 363 330
     jha@1stsilicon.com
     bdjabu@1stsilicon.com
     www.1stsilicon.com
         or
     Virtual IP Group, Inc.
     Joseph Hong, 408/733-3344
     Facsimile: 408/733-9922
     joseph_hong@virtualipgroup.com
     www.virtualipgroup.com