NEC Electronics America to Distribute Tensilica’s
New Diamond Standard Processor Cores as Part of Its ASIC IP Offering

Santa Clara, CA – February 21, 2006 –Tensilica announced today that it has signed an expanded distribution agreement for NEC Electronics America to distribute Tensilica’s new Diamond Standard processor cores in addition to the Tensilica Xtensa configurable processor cores that NEC Electronics America has been distributing already.

“By offering Tensilica’s new Diamond Standard processor portfolio, we are expanding our ASIC IP offering for our customers,” stated Kazu Yamada, vice president and general manager, Custom SoC Solutions Strategic Business Unit, NEC Electronics America. “Tensilica’s Diamond Standard processor cores provide a variety of solutions using a common base instruction architecture, making the cores easier to integrate throughout all ASIC platforms.”

Under the agreement, Tensilica’s Diamond Standard and Xtensa processors are both directly available to NEC Electronics America’s ASIC customers under one licensing agreement. NEC Electronics America will be able to provide a complete solution for companies pursuing high-volume projects that require either standard or configurable processor cores in a feature-rich, high-density ASIC technology with world-class support.

“NEC Electronics America has a strong customer base with systems companies and fabless semiconductor suppliers, and we are excited to expand our relationship to include our new Diamond Standard processor cores,” stated Chris Rowen, Tensilica’s president and CEO.

About Tensilica

Tensilica offers the broadest line of controller, CPU and specialty DSP processors on the market today, in both an off-the-shelf format via the Diamond Standard Series cores and with full designer configurability with the Xtensa processor family. Tensilica’s low-power, benchmark proven processors have been designed into high-volume products at industry leaders in the digital consumer, networking and telecommunications markets. All Tensilica processor cores are complete with a matching software development tool environment, portfolio of system simulation models, and hardware implementation tool support. For more information on Tensilica's patented approach to the creation of application-specific building blocks for SOC design, visit www.tensilica.com.

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Editors’ Notes:

• Tensilica and Xtensa are registered trademarks belonging to Tensilica, Inc. NEC Electronics and NEC Electronics America are either registered trademarks or trademarks of NEC Electronics Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other company and product names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
  
• Tensilica’s announced licensees include ALPS, AMCC (JNI Corporation), Astute Networks, Atheros, ATI, Avago Technologies, Avision, Bay Microsystems, Berkeley Wireless Research Center, Broadcom, Cisco Systems, Conexant Systems, Cypress, Crimson Microsystems, ETRI, FUJIFILM Microdevices, Fujitsu Ltd., Hudson Soft, Hughes Network Systems, Ikanos Communications, LG Electronics, Marvell, NEC Laboratories America, NEC Corporation, NetEffect, Neterion, Nippon Telephone and Telegraph (NTT), NVIDIA, Olympus Corporation, sci-worx, Seiko Epson, Solid State Systems, Sony, STMicroelectronics, Stretch, TranSwitch Corporation, u-Nav Microelectronics and Victor Company of Japan (JVC).