Bluetooth-ASICs: austriamicrosystems and Wipro Start a Cooperation in Design and Sales; New Worldwide Partnership in Communications Industry

    UNTERPREMSTATTEN, Austria & BANGALORE, India-- Feb. 27, 2002--Wipro Technologies, the global IT services division of Wipro Limited , announced a chip partnership with austriamicrosystems, one of worldwide market leaders in mixed analog/digital ASICs offering a broad range of customer solutions for the automotive, communication and industrial markets.
    Under the terms of the partnership, Wipro and austriamicrosystems will combine their Bluetooth expertise to jointly produce and market chipsets for the emerging Bluetooth wireless market. This partnership moves Wipro up the customer value chain and reinforces its position as a leading provider of technology solutions and product realization services for the wireless and connectivity markets.
    The alliance with austriamicrosystems marks Wipro's foray into the Bluetooth product space and further augments Wipro's capability to offer its customers with a total Bluetooth solution, thus becoming a one-stop-shop solutions provider for the Bluetooth market. The alliance provides austriamicrosystems access to Wipro's pre-designed and pre-verified, ready-to-deploy IP's in Bluetooth to get a crucial time-to-market advantage.
    austriamicrosystems' Bluetooth radio will be integrated with Wipro's Intellectual Properties in Bluetooth Baseband to provide wireless system vendors and product companies with a composite Bluetooth application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) or application-specific standard product (ASSP).
    The ASICs/ ASSPs will be manufactured at austriamicrosystems' independent foundry and supported by design engineers and foundry engineering teams from both companies. Wipro's BQB qualified BlueWave family of Bluetooth Intellectual Property cores and software includes the BlueWave Baseband Controller synthesizable core as well as the BlueWave Software Stack and BlueWave Profiles. For Hans Jorg Kaltenbrunner, Chairman of austriamicrosystems the new High-Tech-partnership means "a perfect basis to reach the top in a fast growing segment. That new network of know-how and production brings a lot of synergy to both companies."

    About austriamicrosystems AG

    austriamicrosystems AG has its headquarters in Unterpremstatten, near Graz (Austria). The mission of the company is to develop, qualify and manufacture specialized microelectronic devices based on customer's specifications. The company has 940 employees, located in 14 offices around the world. Revenues for the year 2001 increased by 20 percent over the previous year, to about 147,5 million Euros. Further information is available at the company's web site: www.austriamicrosystems.com.