ANT Fresco™ Browser Selected by Philips Semiconductors

ANT Fresco browser selected by Philips Semiconductors for its Nexperia™ silicon system platforms

Cambridge, 21 May 2001

ANT Limited, a leading provider of embedded communication software for consumer electronics, Internet appliances and eCommerce products, has announced that Philips Semiconductors has chosen the ANT Fresco browser as a part of its innovative Nexperia system silicon platforms.

The Nexperia architecture is set to drive the definition and production of next-generation home-entertainment and consumer products by allowing OEMs to integrate digital audio and video, web access and data communications using a proven, re-usable set of interoperable hardware and software modules. Philips Semiconductors will include ANT Fresco as part of the Nexperia software solution for set-top boxes (STBs) and integrated digital TVs, enabling Philips to offer an advanced solution for broadcasters and manufacturers of digital TV devices.

"ANT Fresco was chosen following extensive research and evaluation of numerous browsers by the Philips Research Group," said Enrico De Salve, software and sales marketing manager at Philips Semiconductors. "Software plays a key role in our Nexperia platform design, and the Fresco browser provides our broadcast and OEM customers with configurable functionality and facilities to produce a customised and highly focused user interface for product branding and differentiation. The ANT browser was ported to our silicon in a very short time and will help to establish the Nexperia platform as the platform of choice for digital consumer electronic products."

"By choosing our browser to be part of its solution for high-performance digital TV devices, Philips Semiconductors becomes another prestigious partner to add to the list of technology companies who recognise the many benefits of our product," said John Cherry, Senior VP of Sales and Marketing at ANT. "The flexibility and ease of customisation means that Fresco is rapidly becoming the browser of choice for such applications. Now Philips Semiconductors' customers have access to an interoperable, re-usable browser module that they can be confident carries the quality they would expect of a high-reliability embedded product."

Philips' Nexperia solutions allow OEMs to bring advanced consumer products to market rapidly, and with a high degree of flexibility. Each Nexperia platform is tailored to its own specific application domain, building on Philips' range of experience in multiple technologies. OEMs using Nexperia gain access to a set of hardware and software modules guaranteed to interoperate seamlessly, and designed for re-use. ANT Fresco will provide the core browser technology with a customisable user interface for Philips' customers working on next-generation appliances requiring web access.

ANT Fresco is a platform-independent browser that enables OEMs to quickly and easily customise a branded interface for their Internet appliances. As the industry's first content-driven browser, it is designed to support real-world web content. ANT's extensive and ongoing research into the features and functions used by today's websites allows consumer product OEMs to offer users greatly increased access to web-based content. It has a small memory footprint and is based on a patent pending three layer architecture.

About ANT Software Limited

ANT plc (www.antplc.com) is a leading provider of digital TV client and consumer electronic software solutions. ANT's unique client solutions allow robust and consistent delivery of digital-media, user interfaces, interactive services and applications to the TV and portable media devices. ANT enables service providers to efficiently create and deploy successful solutions to the market that deliver high value and clear differentiation.

ANT's products are pre-integrated with many industry-leading solutions and are based upon open standards, enabling low-risk, cost-effective roll-out of services, while ensuring flexible client hardware choice with efficient bill of materials. ANT software has been extensively deployed by customers throughout the world including Chunghwa Telecom, Foxconn, France Telecom, Humax, LG/Nortel, Philips, Sagem, Samsung, SaskTel, Telecom Italia and Thomson.

ANT plc's shares are listed on AIM, a London Stock Exchange regulated market, under the ticker ANTP (Reuters: ANTP.L, Bloomberg: ANTP.LN).

About Philips Semiconductors

Philips Semiconductors, which had annual revenues of approximately US$6.3 billion in 2000, designs and manufactures semiconductors and silicon systems platforms. Philips Semiconductors is spearheading the emerging field of systems on silicon solutions with the innovative Nexperia™ platform and VLSI Velocity™ tool set. The company's Sea-of-IP™ design methodology allows plug and play intellectual property blocks for easily customisable products. The company is a leader in communications, consumer, PC peripherals and automotive semiconductors, which are key applications for convergence in end-user products. Philips Semiconductors is headquartered in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, and has operations throughout the world. For more information: www.semiconductors.philips.com.

Trademarks

ANT, the ANT logo, Galio, Fresco and PurePlay are all trademarks or registered trademarks of ANT Software Limited. All other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Press Contacts
Contact Marketing for information about this and other press releases.