Discera's CTO, Wan-Thai Hsu, Wins Innovator of the Year EE Times ACE Award

SAN JOSE, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- April 9, 2007 -- Discera, a world leader in CMOS MEMS oscillators, resonators, and provider of next-generation timing solutions, today announced that its chief technology officer, Wan-Thai Hsu, was honored with the EE Times Annual Creativity in Electronics (ACE) Award for Innovator of the Year. Honors were presented at the EE Times ACE Awards Gala on April 3, 2007, as part of the Embedded Systems Conference Silicon Valley.

The award is given to an individual who brings leadership, creativity and out-of-the-box thinking to a technology, a product or a business. Hsu was named as one of five finalists earlier this year. Discera's MEMS-based timing devices offer a scalable, flexible and cost-effective alternative to quartz crystal and have the potential to dramatically change the electronics marketplace.

"Wan-Thai Hsu embodies the spirit of the creators of technology that EE Times tries to celebrate every week in its coverage of the industry," said Brian Fuller, editor-in-chief, EE Times. "His work with his colleagues at Discera on MEMS devices is enabling a new generation of system solutions that weren't possible just a few years ago."

For years the concept of using MEMS as a replacement for quartz had been theorized by academics but there were few who thought it would be possible to overcome the challenges required for real world use. Beginning in 2001, Hsu and his team moved the technology far beyond academic research, focusing on solving real world problems (temperature compensation, reliability and packaging). Under Hsu's technical vision and guidance, Discera developed, qualified and began producing silicon MEMS devices for timing applications in high volume.

"Congratulations to Wan-Thai for this much deserved recognition," said Tom Willey, CEO, Discera. "The industry is realizing the silicon resonators for frequency reference is real. Wan-Thai's innovation broke the ice for the timing industry with next generations of resonators and paved the way to the fully integrated systems."

The result of years of concentrated research and development, Discera's MOS1 family of oscillators is poised to enable electronics companies to overcome the challenges posed by quartz crystal technology, which is pushing the limits of its scalability, costs and processing technology. The promise of reduced costs and smaller product footprint offered by MEMS has, until now, been offset by concerns about silicon resonators and reliability. These concerns included frequency stability over temperature cycling, aging, vibration operation and shock resistance. The MOS1 oscillator product family overcomes these concerns. The MOS1 family is being used as a direct replacement of quartz crystal oscillators for timing components in electronics devices. The product is offered by a worldwide set of partners and distributors including Vectron and Abracon.

The EE Times ACE Awards were created to recognize the people, companies and products that show leadership in the electronics industry, honoring those who are leading the way and making positive contributions -- the real innovators of technology. Finalists were evaluated by a prestigious panel of judges, comprised of the leading voices of academia, industry and Wall Street executives. For more information, visit http://www.eetimes.com/ace.

About Discera

Discera is a fabless analog semiconductor company that offers tiny, high performance silicon resonators for the frequency and timing control markets. These resonators act as the heartbeat or pulse for a variety of devices from consumer products such as cameras and MP3 players to specialized equipment for the military. The company's PureSilicon™ resonator technology is a fundamental building block that offers, according to Semico Research, "a better mousetrap" for creating fully integrated, low cost, small form factor wireline and wireless products, such as oscillators, filters, and RF components. Unlike crystal based oscillators, Discera's PureSilicon™ based CMOS oscillators can be integrated into other CMOS based circuits. Founded in 2001 and headquartered in San Jose, California, Discera is a privately held company with investments from Ardesta, Partech, 3i, Qualcomm Ventures, Horizon Ventures, and Scale Ventures. More information is available at www.discera.com.

About the CMP Technology Electronics Group

The CMP Technology Electronics Group is the premier technology and business media brand serving the information needs of the creators of technology worldwide. Offering a full suite of products and services to reach electronics technology professionals throughout the world, the CMP Technology Electronics Group delivers the most targeted audience and actionable information to marketers in the electronics technology community. Each month, the CMP Technology Electronics Group delivers more than 1 million copies of its print publications, including EE Times, to subscribers in more than 23 countries and online visitors from 100 countries view more than 8 million pages on its Web sites in seven languages including EETimes.com and TechOnline. More than 40,000 decision makers attend its Embedded Systems Conferences each year in Boston, Silicon Valley, China and Taiwan.

Contact Information: Media Contacts: Venkat Bahl Discera, Inc. 408-432-8600 x228 venkat@discera.com Emilie Harris Lois Paul & Partners 512-638-5321 emilie_harris@lpp.com