ORANGE, Calif., March 16, 2004 — Axiom Microdevices Inc., provider of the world’s first and only fully integrated complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) power amplifier (PA), today announced that it has filed a formal rejection of the claims made by Silicon Laboratories Inc. in its recently announced lawsuit. In addition, Axiom demanded that Silicon Labs supply the court with strict proof of any facts that support its allegations. Professor Ali Niknejad, a faculty member at University of California at Berkley, with whom Axiom is alleged to have conspired to misappropriate trade secrets, filed a similar statement.

"The allegations essentially claim that Axiom must have obtained confidential information from Professor Niknejad because the company has only been in existence for two years yet has a superior product that is generations ahead of any PA technology from Silicon Labs or others in the industry," said Antoine Paquin, president and chief executive officer, Axiom.

"These allegations are puzzling to us because Silicon Labs’ personnel attended conferences at which advances leading to Axiom's product were presented and, additionally, sat on technical program committees that had early access to these results. These conferences and committee meetings were held as early as 2001,” Paquin explained.

“Given this, Silicon Labs was quite aware of the revolutionary work conducted by Axiom’s founders and inventors at California Institute of Technology (CalTech), where the technology underlying the newly announced Axiom AX501 PA was developed based on research dating back to early 2000,” Paquin said. “Our investigation has confirmed that Silicon Labs’ claims are not supported by any fact known or available to Axiom and that we have fully lived up to the importance we place on honoring the intellectual property rights of others."

Axiom markets a next-generation fully integrated PA, the AX501, which was introduced in February. It is the only solution available in the industry that is pure CMOS and requires absolutely no module or substrate technology. Patents licensed exclusively to Axiom by CalTech protect Axiom’s products; these patents are based on groundbreaking research done by Axiom's founders while at CalTech.