Spansion Expands Global Engineering Network - New Design Center in Suzhou

Establishes Regional Design Expertise for MirrorBit and Logic-on-Flash Solutions

"Establishing the Suzhou center will position Spansion to more effectively serve the rapidly expanding consumer electronics market in Asia," said Bertrand Cambou, president and chief executive officer of Spansion. "By working closely with the region's complementary hardware and software suppliers, as well as end customers, we will have the opportunity to develop sophisticated system-level solutions that reduce cost, time-to-market and design complexity. We believe this will unleash greater innovation and differentiation in end products, while increasing the value that Spansion brings to the market."

The center will initially house a team of 10 engineers dedicated to developing system-on-chip (SoC) solutions that integrate Spansion MirrorBit Flash memory with logic. Spansion plans to grow the facility to 50 engineers within three years, and expand system and software engineering resources. The center is expected to be fully operational by mid 2007.

Pern Shaw, a 30-year industry veteran with extensive IC and design management expertise, will head up the new site. As director of engineering for Motorola, Pern successfully created and operated a similar design center in the Suzhou area. Most recently, he was chief technology officer for China Core Technologies.