Press Release

10th December, 2001

IAR Systems and XEMICS close a deal on development systems for Bluetooth products

IAR Systems in Sweden and XEMICS in Switzerland today announced that a deal has been closed around development and production of Bluetooth Starter Kits for the XEMICS semiconductors for the Bluetooth wireless technology. The products will be developed and manufactured by IAR Systems in Jönköping, Sweden, and marketed and sold by the XEMICS world-wide sales organization.

The Bluetooth Starter Kit from XEMICS contains Bluetooth hardware as well as software that enables engineers to evaluate, and start development of, Bluetooth products based on ultra- low power Bluetooth semiconductors from XEMICS. The kit contains all hardware and software needed to set up a working Bluetooth node, and is specially tailored to serve the needs of battery powered Bluetooth solutions.

IAR will also add support for the Bluetooth solution from XEMICS in IAR MakeApp for the Bluetooth protocol stack, the world’s first development tool with graphical configuration and automatic code generation tool of optimized Bluetooth protocol stacks.

“This deal strengthens IAR System’s position as the leading supplier of development tools for Bluetooth products” says Lars-Erik Stenkil, General Manager at IAR Systems in Jönköping, Sweden. “At the same time, we can help XEMICS to bring a powerful evaluation and prototyping system for the XEMICS semiconductor devices quickly to the market”.

“This alliance allows XEMICS’ customers to easily develop Bluetooth applications and to significantly reduce time to market of their products” says Alain Dantec, Chief Executive Officer at XEMICS, Switzerland.

He added that “battery powered applications especially, will additionally benefit from IAR’s optimized protocol stack and XEMICS highly integrated Bluetooth IC’s due to the performance as well as system cost optimization.”

By using the Bluetooth Starter Kit for the Bluetooth modules from XEMICS, R&D engineers around the world will be able to start product development using the XEMICS devices much faster. It also allows the developers to explore the unique features of the XEMICS devices.

About IAR Systems

By focusing on the embedded systems industry, IAR Systems has reached the position of leading supplier of software development tools for embedded microcontrollers. Since the company was founded in 1983, IAR has worked in close cooperation with the world’s major chip manufacturers to develop a wide range of programming tools supporting a large number of chip architectures. The tools today consist of highly efficient C and EC++ compilers in the IAR Embedded Workbench™ development environment, the device driver wizard IAR MakeApp™ for graphical configuration and initialization of the chip and creation of complete device drivers and the IAR visualSTATE® graphic programming tool with a patented technology to generate validated and small production-ready code. IAR Systems also provides a total solution for Bluetooth™ protocol stacks and applications, from development of Bluetooth devices to qualification. IAR Design Services injects engineering expertise and experience into embedded system projects. It contributes to IAR’s mission to reduce the development time for embedded systems and accelerate time to market. IAR Systems has offices in the US, UK, Japan, Canada, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. More information is available at www.iar.com.

About XEMICS

XEMICS is a privately owned fabless semiconductor  company with headquarters in Switzerland and a world-wide sales and customer support network. XEMICS delivers a range of advanced short-range wireless connectivity solutions to a global customer base. XEMICS is a leading designer and provider of Bluetooth™ devices, CODEC's, Wireless RF transceivers, and data acquisition, as well as GPS solutions. With a focus on low cost and  high quality XEMICS provides solutions by utilizing ultra-low power technology in innovative IC designs. Web site: www.xemics.com

For further information, please contact:

Lars-Erik Stenkil, General Manager, IAR Systems Jonkoping AB, phone: +46 36 345000,
mobile phone: +46 708 120606, e-mail: lars-erik.stenkil@iar.se
Isabelle Bellaton, Marketing Communications Manager, XEMICS SA,
phone +41 32 720 5562, e-mail: pr@xemics.com