Fast-Chip, Incorporated Receives $11 Million in New Funding; Second Round Financing Drives Introduction of OC-192 Network Coprocessors

Business Wire, July 20, 2000

Business Editors/Technology Writers

LOS ALTOS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 20, 2000

Fast-Chip, Incorporated, a semiconductor company dedicated to high performance communications ICs announced today that it secured $11M of venture capital funding led by Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Private Equity with participation by Synergy Venture Partners, and others. The financing provides the impetus to Fast-Chip's introduction of its PolicyEdge(TM) network coprocessor to select network equipment OEM customers later this year.

By refining the network data path through partitioning and acceleration of critical tasks, Fast-Chip's products enable high-level features at data rates of OC-48, OC-192, and beyond. The network infrastructure market is pushing bandwidth beyond multiple OC-48 pipes and up to OC-192 with OC-768 becoming available in the next two years. With the OC-192 capable PolicyEdge(TM) network coprocessor being designed into new system architectures, Fast-Chip's customers will be able to offer feature-rich, flexible network devices at the very leading edge of the performance curve.

Fast-Chip currently targets three distinct market segments with the PolicyEdge(TM) family. These include: optical switching, MAN/WAN multiservice, and the broadband access markets. Products that will benefit from the PolicyEdge(TM) network coprocessors include: VPN devices, bandwidth managers, fast-firewalls, service aggregation devices, core switch routers, and switch-based server clusters. "PolicyEdge(TM) will enable high level intelligent management of data," said Alex Henderson, Fast-Chip's CTO. "Feature-rich services, bandwidth on demand, differentiated services, and billable premium services are the future of the Internet."

Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Private Equity and Synergy Venture Partners bring Fast-Chip the support and positioning to further strengthen the confidence already placed in them by their lead customers. "We have followed the development of Fast-Chip through its early stages," said William Harding, General Partner of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Private Equity. "With its extensive intellectual property portfolio and strong team, Fast-Chip is now in an excellent position and will be able to capitalize on a market of tremendous potential."

"It's rewarding to see the financial community recognize our technology and market position. We are also very pleased to be working with such top notch investors," said Gregg Cook, CEO and President of Fast-Chip. "This funding helps fuel our momentum and removes a major obstacle in our effort to provide truly advanced semiconductor solutions to the Internet infrastructure marketplace."

About Fast-Chip:

Fast-Chip Incorporated is a fabless semiconductor company founded in 1998 that provides component level solutions for network equipment OEMs. Fast-Chip's technology provides feature-enabling solutions without sacrificing performance. Fast-Chip's products target the emerging market for intelligent policy-based network equipment used at the edges of the network. Fast-Chip's products are designed to leverage existing hardware and software architectures, including those based on embedded processors, ASICs, or network processors, allowing network equipment OEMs to rapidly bring to market feature-rich, high-performance, cost-effective products.

PolicyEdge(TM) is a trademark of Fast-Chip Incorporated. All other brands or products are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.