NATIONAL SEMICONDUCTOR AND DSP GROUP ANNOUNCE COOPERATION ON THE LICENSING OF NATIONAL’S FAMILY OF EMBEDDED COMPACTRISC PROCESSOR CORES

October 21, 1997- - National Semiconductor Corporation® and DSP Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: DSPG) today announced that they have entered into an agreement under which DSP Group, Inc., has become the worldwide exclusive distributor for general licensing and support of National’s CompactRISC core technology.

"We are very pleased to have DSP Group, Inc., the leader in licensing of DSP core technology, as a distributor of the CompactRISC technology" said Mike Bereziuk, senior vice president and general manager for National Semiconductor's Worldwide Marketing and Sales Organization. "We see a growing trend to combine high-performance embedded RISC processors with programmable digital signal processing. Both DSP Group and National now provide that capability."

The first member of the CompactRISC family available for licensing from DSP Group, Inc., is a synthesizeable 16-bit embedded RISC core that fills the performance void between existing low-cost 8- and 16-bit microcontrollers, and 32-bit processors in the embedded application market. A second member of the CompactRISC family, a 32-bit RISC core, will be available soon, and provides a roadmap for the future performance needs of 16-bit customers.

A number of key features differentiate the new 16-bit CompactRISC core from competitive offerings. With a die-area size of less than 1mm2 in a 0.35 micron CMOS process, the core's footprint is significantly reduced. Static operation from zero to 50 MHz and current consumption of 0.3 mA/MHz at 3 Volts ensure very low power operation together with more than twice the performance of other 16-bit microcontrollers. Efficient utilization of memory reduces the SRAM requirements by up to a factor of two compared to 32-bit RISC embedded processors. The resulting architecture is ideally suited for embedded applications in the wireless telephony, personal computing & peripherals, automotive and industrial markets.

"We believe that the CompactRISC core, with its unique combination of minimal power consumption, reduced memory utilization, small core size and support from multiple tools and operating system vendors is perfectly suited for high volume, cost sensitive embedded control applications," said Eli Ayalon, president and CEO of the DSP Group. "With the addition of CompactRISC technology to the proven OakDSPCore, PineDSPCore, and future PalmDSPCoretechnologies, DSP Group can maintain its leading position as a core provider for high volume consumer market applications. Furthermore, by offering both RISC and DSP cores, DSP Group has become a 'one-stop shopping' source," added Ayalon.

DSP Group, together with the many other CompactRISC third party vendors, also offer a wide variety of 'seamless' software and hardware development environments for implementing RISC and DSP cores on the same silicon die. Such combined RISC and DSP tools provide customers with an easy and complete embedded design solution, and significantly reduce the time it takes to bring products to the market.

DSP Group, Inc. is a leader in the development and marketing of high-performance, cost-effective digital signal processing cores used in a wide range of applications for industries such as wireless communications, telephony and personal computing. By combining its DSP core technology with its advanced speech processing algorithms, DSP Group also delivers a wide range of enabling application-specific DSPs. Additional information is available on the World Wide Web at www.dspg.com. This press release is also available through the company’s News on Call fax service, which can be reached at (800) 758-5804, company code 112025.

National Semiconductor Corporation, a Fortune 500 company, produces system on a chip silicon solutions for the information highway, based on its leadership in analog and mixed signal technologies. National is headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and focuses on the communications, personal systems and consumer markets. National has annual sales of approximately $2.5 billion and 12,700 employees worldwide. Additional company and product information is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.national.com or http://www.compactrisc.com.

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CompactRISC is a trademark of National Semiconductor Corporation. National Semiconductor Corporation is a registered trademark of National Semiconductor Corporation. PineDSPCore, and OakDSPCore are registered trademark of DSP Group, Inc. PalmDSPCore is a trademark of DSP Group, Inc. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.