Hsinchu, June 22, 2005 - Sunplus Technology (TAIEX: 2401, LSE: SUPD), a leader in semiconductor solutions for consumer electronics and digital media applications, today announced the availability of the SPIF215A and the SPIF216A USB2.0 bridge solutions for external Serial-ATA drives. The SPIF215A & SPIF216A are the first in a new family of bridge solutions for Serial-ATA storage from Sunplus Technology. Targeted to support the rapid transition to Serial-ATA storages, the SPIF215A and SPIF216A are fully integrated solutions which provide industry's fastest data transfer throughput, full compatibility with Serial ATA hard disks and optical disk drives, as well as enhanced peripheral support and reference design which simplify the system design.

"The SPIF215A and SPIF216A offer our customers a high level of complete USB2.0-to-SATA bridge solutions for simple, speedy, scalable and fully compatible external storage expansion," stated Yee-Lu Zhaog, product planning manager of storage bridge solutions for Sunplus Technology. "This translates to best-in-class price/performance pairing, enabling our customers to cost-effectively implement and manufacture external storage solutions. The SPIF215A & SPIF216A mark the first in our entry into the external Serial ATA storage market."

In its 64-pin TQFP package, the cost-effective SPIF215A enables a transparent data transfer throughput up to 30MB/sec between an USB2.0 port and a SATA device while ensuring a full SATA compatibility with external Serial -ATA hard disks and optical disk drives. Plug-n-Play is supported on both SATA side and USB side. The USB mass storage device firmware is embedded inside the chip and no additional flash memory is needed. The SPIF216A, in its 100-pin TQFP package, is the advanced version of the SPIF215A with interfaces for peripheral and memory support. With external flash memory, the SPIF216A supports firmware upgrade and virtual disc functions. Additionally, serial EEPROM can be controlled by the SPIF216A and added via serial data bus. GPIO pins further extend the SPIF216A's peripheral support capabilities which can facilitate the support of security or backup services. To simplify customized design, Sunplus provides a complete set of utilities, API and reference codes to minimize Time-to-Market. The firmware can be further scaled up via a built-in interface in the firmware through which additional Serial ATA instruction can be sent from USB host to Serial ATA hard disk. The SPIF215A and SPIF216A both feature an integral SATA PHY operating at 1.5GHz, an USB2.0 PHY supporting USB high-speed and full-speed transfer rates and are fully compatible with different OS platforms such as Windows, Linux and Mac.

Availability
The SPIF215A and SPIF216A are available now and are currently in volume production. For more information, please visit www.sunplus.com.tw or contact Sunplus sales at +886-3-578-6005.