ALLENTOWN, PA and SINGAPORE - November 27, 2007 - Lightwire, Inc., a US-based provider of high-bandwidth interconnects, today announced that its silicon photonics process jointly developed with Singapore's Institute of Microelectronics (IME) and Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd. (Chartered) for producing ultra-high speed devices of 10 to 100 Gbps is being transferred to Chartered, one of the world's leading semiconductor foundries. The new silicon photonics device technology, protected by over 120 patents, is revolutionary in its ability to integrate light modulation circuitry into silicon, yet is fully compatible with Chartered's current high-volume CMOS process technologies. This is a critical milestone in bringing to market a new silicon photonics process that meets the high-speed, low-power and low-cost requirements of high-performance interconnects for computing and communications.

"Silicon photonics is an emerging field that offers tremendous potential in every area requiring high-speed interconnects, from the backbone of the Internet to high-performance computing and networking," points out Lightwire CEO Vijay Albuquerque. "But the key is being able to drive down the extremely high costs associated with traditional optical solutions. Lightwire's innovative silicon photonics-based technology offers orders of magnitude improvements in both performance and cost of interconnects by making high-performance optical interconnects as inexpensive as electrical ones. Today's announcement, a result of a three-party collaboration by IME, Chartered and Lightwire which began in 2006, moves the industry one important step closer to that goal and opens the doors to production-ready devices in 2008."

"Through this collaboration with international partners, we aim to jump-start a silicon photonics industry in Singapore. The project combines the value-add of the world-class silicon photonics technology of Lightwire, the excellent process technology research of IME and the world-class manufacturing of Chartered. It is a unique model where world-class companies from multiple geographical regions are able to capitalize on the strengths of Singapore research institutes, bridging the gap between design and manufacturing," said Mr. Boon Swan Foo, Executive Chairman of Exploit Technologies, the marketing and commercialization arm of A*STAR. "Given the vast commercial potential of the technology, Exploit Technologies has identified silicon photonics as a flagship initiative. Exploit's funding of the collaborative efforts of A*STAR's research institutes supports technologies identified as key to future high volume market opportunities."

Professor Dim-Lee Kwong, Executive Director of IME, said, "We are extremely pleased to announce this milestone as it will have significant impact on a very important emerging field, silicon photonics. The collaboration with Lightwire is a strategic step in utilizing IME's CMOS process capability to develop silicon photonics process technology fully compatible for volume production at Chartered."

"Chartered is pleased to add this new CMOS photonics process to our high-volume manufacturing capabilities," said Dr. Simon Yang, Senior Vice President, Fab Operations and Chief Technology Officer at Chartered. "This opens the door for Chartered's participation in the high-volume markets for ultra-high speed silicon photonic devices. Lightwire, IME and Chartered have worked well together, and we are pleased to have reached this milestone so quickly."

"Silicon photonics has tremendous potential in changing how computing, communications and networking equipment incorporate very high-speed interconnects," said Jag Bolaria, Senior Analyst at The Linley Group. "Silicon photonics is moving from the lab into mainstream production and this is a major breakthrough, given Chartered's industry leading position as a dedicated semiconductor foundry."