SPE.L Regulatory News (SPE)

27 Mar 2007 07:00

Embargoed Release: 0700hrs 27 March 2007

Winbond Israel Advances New Product Innovation with Sopheon's Accolade‚® Semiconductor Maker Strengthens Innovation Processes and Enhances Team Collaboration with Product Life Cycle Management System

Sopheon, the international software and services company, announces today that Winbond Israel Ltd., a developer of semiconductor integrated circuits and software, is implementing Sopheon's Accolade to support the automation and management of its product development process. The software system is being deployed in the organization's Israeli research and development centers.

Winbond Israel is a subsidiary of Taiwan-based Winbond Electronics Corporation, one of the world's leading producers of semiconductor solutions. The Israeli operation specializes in developing and marketing products for personal computers, including Super I/O embedded controllers and security devices. In recent years, the semiconductor industry as a whole has continued to grow, but the rate of expansion has slowed. This trend, combined with emergence of non-traditional applications in such areas as Trusted Platform Modules and SideShow¢â€ž¢ controllers, has heightened the need for both process and product innovation.

Winbond Israel's implementation of Accolade is central to the organization's strategy for enhancing its innovation process and increasing the business return on investments in new products. The system will be used to collect and manage new product ideas, and to enable online collaboration among project teams working on product concepts selected for development. Executives, process owners and team members will benefit from on-demand desktop access to a central repository of the data needed to review and assess the status and value of projects in the developmental pipeline. At the same time, Accolade's resource planning capabilities will help ensure that team efforts are properly aligned to support successful completion of priority project work.

"One of the primary reasons we chose Sopheon as a solution provider is their domain expertise," said Yoram Avigdor, program management officer and security product manager at Winbond Israel. "Their support helped to ensure that the innovation process we put in place is grounded in the latest best practices. Accolade's ease-of-use and simple configurability were also important. But what ultimately sold us on Sopheon's system was the fact that it matches up well with our culture. Winbond's business creed is to deliver what we commit. Accolade's capabilities are a glove-fit with the emphasis on innovation, teamwork and accountability upon which that creed is built."

"In the semiconductor industry, a supplier's capacity to respond quickly to custom, end-user requirements is essential to business success," said Nigel Cordery, European director for Sopheon. "Accolade not only gives Winbond an automated best-practice process structure, it provides them with the kind of strategic oversight and agility needed to quickly deliver solutions that customers will value."

Accolade‚® is a registered trademark of Sopheon plc.

SideShow¢â€ž¢ is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

All other trademarks are the sole property of their respective owners.

AboutWinbond

Winbond Electronics Corporation, a world-class leading supplier of IC product solutions, was founded in Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan in 1987. The Company has first-rate capabilities in product design, research and development, manufacturing, marketing and sales. Winbond has two business groups:

* Logic IC Business Group handles ‚µc-based consumer ICs and computer logic ICs. * Memory IC Business Group is dedicated to Mobile RAM and Flash memory. Its major products include low-power DRAM, specialty DRAM, Pseudo SRAM, commodity DRAM, and low-density Flash.

Winbond operates one 300 mm wafer fab, two 200 mm wafer fabs and one 150 mm wafer fab. The company currently has over 5,000 employees and holds more than 2,500 patents worldwide. Winbond has subsidiaries in Mainland China, USA, Japan and Israel. For more information, please visit www.winbond.com.

About Sopheon

Sopheon is an international provider of software and services that help organizations improve the business impact of product innovation. Sopheon's Accolade‚® system automates and governs the innovation process, enabling companies to increase revenue and profits from new products. Sopheon is listed on the AIM Market of the London Stock Exchange and on the Euronext in the Netherlands. For more information, please visit www.sopheon.com.

For further information contact:

Barry Mence, Chairman Sopheon plc Tel : + 44 (0) 1483 685 735 Arif Karimjee, CFO Andrew Tan Hansard Group Tel : + 44 (0) 207 245 1100 + 44 (0) 7957 203 685 Floor van Maaren Citigate First Financial Tel : + 31 (0) 205 754 010