Volume 5, December 2003

APLUS FLASH:
IN THE NEWS

FSA's China Handbook:
Case Study: Aplus Flash Technology - Foreign IP Moving Into Foreign Lands

Fabless Forum: Business Models for IP success



Aplus Featured on daily Sing Tao News Radio Show "Free Talk"

Aplus Flash Technology granted 7 additional non-volatile memory patents in 2003

Aplus Flash Partners:
Episil CEO Archie Hwang featured in Taiwanese publication
Win-Win Weekly

H&Q Asia's Talin Hsu featured in Win-Win Weekly

Market Forecast: Over $7.4 billion MCUs to be shipped by 2007

EE Trends China: December 2003

China Electronics: December 2003

      

Aplus Flash Technology: Year End Letter from the President

Dear Friends,

2003 has been a year of ups and downs for the semiconductor industry - aggravated by SARS, it remained in a state of recession for the better part of the year. However, Aplus was still able to move forward with its ambition of becoming a leading fabless Non-Volatile Memory IP provider through a consistent theme of improvement.

We focused on improvements in:

Scope: We set up offices in both Shanghai and Taipei to better serve our partners and customers. Our Pudong Shanghai office is led by Dr. Henry Ma and Dr. Mike Chen, and is focused on production and sales support. Our Taiwan office is managed by Tim Tsai, and will perform sales and marketing functions for our stand-alone memory products.

Offerings: We expanded our number of IP offerings to include 0.35um OTP, 0.35um EEPROM, 0.35um low-density Flash + EEPROM, and are developing 0.25um and below embedded Flash technology. Our patented MaxFlashTM Flash + EEPROM technology will allow us to further address next-generation smart card and mobile technologies for a variety of applications.

We also introduced our own stand-alone memory products, which will be sampling throughout the first quarter of 2004 and enter sales production for the remainder of the year.

Technology: Technology innovation and capability is Aplus' strength. We were able to improve our designs to be able to achieve yields of over 96% on our OTP design at UMC and Hynix, and 97% for our EEPROM IP at SMIC. These yields are pared with designs that offer our customers wide operating ranges, high reliability (greater than 1 million P/E cycles for our EEPROM), and smaller die sizes for cost reduction. And we've done this all with our and our customers' security and cost needs in mind.

Business Flexibility: As a global economy becomes more of a reality, business flexibility is a key component to overseas success. Our implementation of a flexible IP licensing model of NREs, royalties and turnkey solutions allowed us to serve a variety of customers worldwide. This model has been accepted by our customers and encouraged by our manufacturing partners, as it allows for each of us to focus on our core competencies, giving our customers a better, more cost-effective SOC solution. We have already begun turnkey solutions for some of our EEPROM and OTP customers this year, with production ramping scheduled for early 2004.

Visibility: Aplus was named as one of SMIC's three IP partners last year - the other are globally renowned companies ARM and Mosys. We've also been featured in radio broadcasts, newspapers and publications such as the World Journal, Sing Tao Daily, LA radio station, the Fabless Semiconductor's Fabless Forum, China Integrated Circuits, and more.

None of this could have been accomplished without the hard work and determination of the Aplus team, and the support from our supply chain partners, customers and shareholders. With the semiconductor industry poised for recovery in 2004 and 2005, we believe that 2004 will be a key turning point for Aplus. We thank you for your support and pledge to continue to deliver our IP, design services, and now, our products, with the high quality and quick turnaround Aplus is known for. We welcome your comments and look forward to working with you in 2004 and beyond.


Best Regards,

Peter W. Lee
President & CEO
Aplus Flash Technology, Inc.

 

Product Announcement

Aplus Flash Technology announces the availability of our stand-alone memory products. Aplus is now offering high density 32Mb/64Mb Mask ROM. Please contact our sales for further information and pricing.

  
Editor's note: This newsletter is designed to bring you news of Aplus' activities and exciting opportunities - we conceived of the idea as we thought of how to best keep our customers, shareholders, partners and friends updated on Aplus' progress, while also sharing some broader knowledge in the field of NVM. We hope to publish a newsletter every month and hope that you'll enjoy reading them as much as we enjoy writing them! To subscribe to our newsletter, please click here with subscribe written in the subject line. To unsubscribe, please click here with unsubscribe written in the subject line.

Thank you and we look forward to bringing you further Aplus updates!