Zarlink Ethernet Switch Incorporated in Texas Instruments Carrier-Class VoIP Gateway Reference Design

Embedded Ethernet switch eliminates need for physical devices and saves board space

OTTAWA, CANADA, May 10, 2006 – Zarlink Semiconductor (NYSE/TSX:ZL) today announced that its ZL™50408 Ethernet switch has been incorporated into a Texas Instruments carrier-class VoIP (Voice-over-Internet Protocol) gateway reference design. The reference design enables network equipment manufacturers to reduce system bill of materials (BOM) and power consumption.

The reference design is based around TI’s digital signal processing (DSP) based TNETV3010 device that offers industry-leading solution density. Zarlink’s ZL50408 Fast Ethernet chip routes traffic between the DSP and an IP network. Unlike most low-density switches, Zarlink’s Ethernet chips provide complete advanced functionality and direct connection to the DSP and IP networks without the need for external physical devices (PHYs). Competing switches with embedded PHYs require additional external PHYs to interface to the DSP, consuming more space and power. Although the embedded PHYs are not always needed in all DSP line card designs, they draw from system resources whether used or not, and lock designers into a specific approach.

“By integrating Zarlink’s PHY-less Ethernet chips into our voice gateway reference design, we are offering customers a simple, cost-effective solution,” said Maria Ho, marketing manager of TI’s high density voice group. “We now have a complete suite of reference designs for our TNETV3010 that accommodate architectures including FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays), Wintegra’s Winpath, or a pure DSP design.”

The ZL50408 Ethernet switch family supports three standard interfaces on each port: IEEE 802.3 MII (media-independent interface), RMII (reduced media-independent interface), and GPSI (general purpose serial interface). These flexible interfaces help reduce overall costs and simplify design by allowing direct, seamless connections to DSPs and IP networks without requiring external conversion logic.

“As Ethernet becomes pervasive in the metro access environment, service providers and equipment manufacturers require solutions such as the TNETV3010 and ZL50408 that utilize Ethernet to effectively process time-sensitive traffic,” said Paul Vu, product line marketing manager, Packet Switching, Zarlink Semiconductor. “Our partnership with TI delivers advanced features in a low-power, small-footprint package, offering flexibility for a wide range of applications and customer needs.”

TI’s Carrier Infrastructure Solutions offer the best solution density with the lowest power and space per-channel of any carrier-class VoIP gateway solution. With its field-proven Telogy Software® TI’s solution packs the highest solution density available while delivering true, full-featured toll quality, along with a host of carrier-class features including PCM support, carrier-grade echo cancellation, wireless features, diagnostics, fax relay, low system latency and complete system flexibility. To date, TI has shipped over 120 million carrier class ports worldwide, and holds over 80 percent market share of carrier-class deployments.

Zarlink feature-rich Ethernet switches

The six-device ZL50408 family consists of eight-port Fast Ethernet switches with a Gigabit uplink, as well as five- and nine-port switches. The ZL50408 family provides the industry’s finest-granularity rate control – down to 16-Kb/s increments – on both ingress and egress ports. The PHY-independent switches with embedded memory offer extremely low power, usually 0.4 to 0.8 W (watts), compared to typical consumption of 2 W in Ethernet switches with integrated PHYs.

Zarlink’s Ethernet switches feature patent-pending, hardware-based failure detection and recovery mechanisms, enabling real-time detection of and recovery from link failures within milliseconds, compared to several seconds with most current schemes. The switches support a host of other QoS (Quality of Service) and access features, such as congestion management at the input and output of each port, patent-pending port security and filtering, IEEE’s 802.1X Extensive Authentication Protocol, 4K VLAN (virtual local area network), 4K IP multicasting, advanced statistics monitoring, and link aggregation with the capability to trunk ports across chips. The switches are also offered with a complete suite of management software, which can speed up the development process for customers.

About Zarlink Semiconductor

For over 30 years, Zarlink Semiconductor has delivered semiconductor solutions that drive the capabilities of voice, enterprise, broadband and wireless communications. The Company’s success is built on its technology strengths including voice and data networks, optoelectronics and ultra low-power communications. For more information, visit www.zarlink.com.

Shareholders and other individuals wishing to receive, free of charge, copies of the reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Regulatory Authorities, should visit the Company’s web site at www.zarlink.com or contact investor relations.

Certain statements in this press release constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such risks, uncertainties and assumptions include, among others, the following: rapid technological developments and changes; our ability to achieve profitability and generate positive cash flows in the future; our exposure to product warranty claims resulting from product defects or failures; our dependence on our foundry suppliers and third-party subcontractors; increasing price and product competition; our exposure to currency exchange rate fluctuations and other factors inherent in our international operations; and other factors referenced in our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended March 25, 2005. Investors are encouraged to consider the risks detailed in this filing.

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Zarlink, ZL and the Zarlink Semiconductor logo are trademarks of Zarlink Semiconductor Inc.

North America
Ed Goffin
Media Relations
(613) 270-7112
edward.goffin@zarlink.com

Europe
Simon Krelle
Pinnacle Marketing Communications
44 (0) 7973 821036
simonk@pinnaclemarcom.com

Asia-Pacific
Karen Li
The Hoffman Agency – China
86-10-6507-0985
kli@hoffman.com.cn

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