Spansion Expands System Engineering Capabilities at Design Centers Around the Globe

Company’s technology advancements fostering transformation into a system-level partner

SUNNYVALE, CALIF -- October 19, 2004 --Spansion LLC, the Flash memory subsidiary of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NYSE: AMD) and Fujitsu Limited (TSE: 6702), announced today it has expanded its system engineering capabilities across seven global locations, in line with its strategy to bring higher value to the marketplace and to its customers. New and expanded design centers include sites in Paris, France; Dresden, Germany; and Seoul, Korea.

The expansion of the company’s system engineering capabilities provides customers and infrastructure partners in the Asia Pacific, Europe and North America regions with significant system-level hardware and software expertise.

“As a leading memory solutions provider, our mission is to provide higher value to our customers to help them succeed with their business objectives,” said Steve Lapinski, corporate vice president, worldwide systems engineering and strategic alliances at Spansion. “The memory subsystem in cell phones today is as much a strategic element as the processor. Our partners want us to work with them at the system level to help ensure all of a phone’s subsystems can use the combined power of the processor and our memory to their fullest potential. The benefit for consumers is more powerful communications devices that incorporate truly dazzling next-generation features.”

To reinforce this strategic transformation, Spansion’s newly announced Paris headquarters will become the company’s global center of excellence for security, supported by the global system engineering organization. Worldwide systems engineering sites now include:



  • Austin – Also the location of one of Spansion’s flagship manufacturing plants, Fab 25, the design team in Texas focuses on driver and platform software development.
  • Beijing – Home to some of the world’s largest handset makers, Spansion’s China design team assists partners in developing system reference designs.
  • Dresden - A newly expanded staff of designers in Germany works with partners and customers throughout the region on system level architecture development.
  • Paris – Spansion’s European headquarters will also serve as the company’s global center of excellence for developing security standards and technologies.
  • Seoul – Spansion’s recently opened center in Korea works with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and Original Design Manufacturers (ODMs) to optimize subsystem performance using Spansion™ Flash memory.
  • Sunnyvale – The company’s primary headquarters in Silicon Valley includes a team dedicated to hardware and software verification at the system level.
  • Tokyo – Home of Spansion’s Asia Pacific headquarters, the engineering team here conducts system level engineering and develops custom hardware and software for platform designers.

One of the many benefits to emerge from Spansion’s systems engineering collaboration with partners is a hardware tool, dubbed the PISMO module, that provides those partners with a standard board-level interface so they can test and verify memory products from different vendors.

“The PISMO module will allow platform designers to test and verify a variety of memory products easily and quickly,” Mr. Lapinski said. “Whereas before, system designers had to custom build a memory interface for each product they wanted to test, the PISMO module will help make this a simple plug-and-play task. This means our partners will be able to pre-qualify and validate any memory product, allowing them to offer turnkey solutions more quickly and cost-effectively.”

About Spansion
Spansion, the Flash memory subsidiary of AMD (NYSE:AMD) and Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702), is the world’s leading manufacturer of NOR Flash memory. Spansion Flash memory is used by leaders in the wireless, cellular, automotive, networking, telecommunications and consumer electronics markets. Spansion offers the industry’s broadest Flash memory portfolio, including 5-, 3-, and 1.8-volt products from 1 to 512 Mbits in single-die and multi-chip product (MCP) configurations. Spansion engineering innovations, such as the award-winning MirrorBit™ technology and simultaneous read-write (SRW) architecture, continue to advance the state of the art.

To address global consumer desire for Flash-enabled products, Spansion operates four dedicated Flash fabs and four dedicated Flash assembly sites around the world. All Spansion production fabs are certified to the demanding ISO/TS16949 and ISO9001:2000 quality standards and the ISO14001 environmental standard. Information about Spansion Flash memory solutions is available at http://www.spansion.com/overview.

Spansion, the Spansion logo, MirrorBit, and combinations thereof are trademarks of Spansion LLC. Other names are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.