Open-Silicon Inc. Secures $19.5 Million in Funding Semiconductor Industry Veterans Launch Company to Boost Chip Innovation

SUNNYVALE, Calif.-March 29, 2004: Open-Silicon, Inc., a fabless semiconductor company providing a reliable, predictable and cost effective alternative to traditional chip design and supply chain models, today announced that it has closed two rounds of private equity financing bringing total capital investments to $19.5 million. (See related company announcement.)

Open-Silicon’s Series B funding came from prominent venture capital firms Norwest Venture Partners and Sequoia Capital, who co-led the company’s $8.5M Series A round in June 2003, and new investor, InterWest Partners. Net proceeds from all investments support continued research and development efforts and augment sales and marketing channels in North America and other strategic geographic locations.

“InterWest invests in world class teams that are first to market with dramatic changes for the industries we care about most," said Tom Rosch, general partner at InterWest Partners. Mr. Rosch joins Naveed Sherwani, CEO of Open-Silicon, Pierre Lamond, partner at Sequoia Capital, and Promod Haque, managing partner at Norwest Venture Partners, on Open-Silicon’s board of directors. “As a major investor in early-stage start-ups, we see fabless semiconductors—which have driven industries like the internet, DSL and wireless—as core engines of innovation. As we survey the fabless landscape, we have come to believe that rising development and execution costs are putting fabless innovation at risk. Open-Silicon and the OpenMODEL will play a major role in moving the fabless industry forward and continuing its track record of innovation.

About Open-Silicon’s Management Team
Open-Silicon was founded and is led by president and CEO, Dr. Naveed Sherwani, the former general manager and founder of Intel Microelectronics Services ®; vice president of operations, Scott Houghton, the former senior vice president and general manager of Synopsys Professional Services Group; and vice president of engineering, Dr. Satya Gupta, the former director of engineering for Intel Microelectronics Services. Sherwani, Houghton and Gupta each bring more than 16 years of ASIC and semiconductor sales, marketing, operations and international experience to the company.

About InterWest Partners
InterWest Partners (www.interwest.com), founded in 1979, is a leading diversified venture capital firm focused on building long-term relationships with entrepreneurs and portfolio companies. With $1.6B capital under management, and a current investment fund of $750 million, InterWest’s experienced partners bring together deep domain knowledge in Life Sciences and Information Technology.
InterWest Partners has consistently helped grow the most influential companies in Information Technology and Life Sciences. The firm's investments in Information Technology include: CIENA (CIEN), Copper Mountain Networks (CMTN), Crystal Semiconductor (acquired by Cirrus Logic, CRUS), Cyrix (CYRX; acquired by National Semiconductor), Lightera (acquired by CIENA), PlaceWare (acquired by Microsoft, MSFT), SiTera (acquired by Vitesse,VTSS), Silicon Graphics (SGI), Stratacom (acquired by Cisco, CSCO) and Xilinx (XLNX).
InterWest Partners has offices in Menlo Park, California and Dallas, Texas.

About Sequoia Capital
Since 1972, Sequoia Capital has provided startup venture capital for very smart people who want to turn ideas into companies. As the “Entrepreneurs Behind the Entrepreneurs”, Sequoia Capital's Partners have worked with innovators such as Sandy Lerner and Len Bozack of Cisco Systems, Jerry Yang and David Filo of Yahoo!, Gaurav Garg of Redback Networks, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google, Dan Warmenhoven of Network Appliance, Max Levchin and Peter Thiel of PayPal (eBay), T.J. Rodgers of Cypress Semiconductor, Lou Tomasetta of Vitesse Semiconductor, Steve Jobs of Apple Computer and Larry Ellison of Oracle. The companies organized by Sequoia Capital now account for about 10% of the value of NASDAQ. To learn more about Sequoia Capital visit http://www.sequoiacap.com/.

About Norwest Venture Partners
For more than 40 years, Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) has actively partnered with
entrepreneurs to build large businesses. NVP focuses on early stage investments in enterprise software and communications technologies. The firm currently manages more than $1.8 billion in venture capital out of its office in Palo Alto, California.
NVP has funded over 350 companies since inception including such market leaders as Actel Corporation, Brocade Communications, Cerent (acquired by Cisco Systems), Documentum, Extreme Networks, Forte Software (acquired by Sun Microsystems), NVE Corporation, PeopleSoft, Quantum Effect Devices (acquired by PMC-Sierra), RF MicroDevices, and Tivoli Systems (acquired by IBM). Recent NVP transactions include Resonext Communications (acquired by RF Micro Devices), Spinnaker Networks (acquired by Network Appliance) and Winphoria Networks (acquired by Motorola).
As a result of these and other investments, Managing Partner Promod Haque was recently named the #1 venture capitalist on the annual Forbes Midas List for 2004 based on performance over the past 10 years. Additional information on Norwest Venture Partners is available at www.nvp.com.

About Open-Silicon, Inc.
Open-Silicon, Inc. is a fabless ASIC company delivering the most cost-effective, predictable and reliable custom ASIC solution to electronics product customers worldwide. Open-Silicon’s OpenMODEL™ is the semiconductor industry's first end-to-end custom ASIC solution based on a revolutionary business model that provides a seamless, low-cost, low risk alternative to traditional models for complex ASIC design and development. For more information, visit Open-Silicon’s website at www.open-silicon.com.