Sigma Designs DVD Decoders Earn Full Dolby Certification

Sigma and Dolby Shorten Time to Market for Products Based on Sigma Designs' REALmagic DVD/MPEG-2 Decoders

FREMONT, CA -- (October 8, 1998) -- Sigma Designs, Inc. (Nasdaq: SIGM), a leader in DVD decoder solutions for personal computers, today announced it has received full Dolby certification for all DVD decoder products based on Sigma's EM8300 and EM8220 REALmagic DVD/MPEG-2 decoder chips. This includes playback cards included in third-party DVD upgrade kits, third-party add-in cards for desktop PCs, and daughter cards based on the EM8220 REALmagic chip developed in conjunction with Intel as part of the reference design for Intel i740-based 2D/3D graphics cards.

Sigma and Dolby Laboratories have worked together to speed up the marketing process for products based on Sigma Designs' REALmagic DVD/MPEG-2 decoder chips. OEMs and add-in card manufacturers will get instant Dolby certification if they use the Dolby-approved reference design provided by Sigma Designs. This means that third-party manufacturers/OEMs interested in manufacturing and selling products based on Sigma's reference design get their products to market more quickly.

"In order to earn Dolby certification, Sigma worked with our licensing engineers to test and fine-tune the audio quality of its EM8300/EM8220 decoder silicon, and then successfully passed a series of certification test suites provided by Dolby," stated Richard Hockenbrock, General Manager, Licensing Services for Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation.

At the heart of facilitating development of systems based on the EM8300/EM8220 are complete turnkey reference designs available from Sigma Designs. A comprehensive hardware and software solution completely ready for manufacturing, the reference design includes an evaluation board, schematics, Gerber printed circuit board plots, drivers, and Sigma's DVD-Station software.

An example of the streamlined Dolby certification program is the Golden Melody DVD8300 decoder recently announced by Formosa Industrial Computing, Inc. "Golden Melody DVD8300 has been certified by Dolby Labs," said Paul Chain, sales and marketing director of the Multimedia and Communications division in Formosa Industrial Computing, Inc. "Formosa's DVD8300 decoder card bundled with a DVD-ROM drive can provide users home theater experiences with high-resolution MPEG-2 video and Dolby Digital (AC-3) surround sound. Users can enjoy Dolby Surround Sound with the Dolby Pro Logic Compatible output offered by DVD8300. If users have a Dolby decoder amplifier with S/PDIF input, users can further enjoy multichannel surround sound with up to 5.1-channel soundtracks," Mr. Chain said.

"We are extremely happy with the PC-DVD reference design procedures we have established with Dolby Laboratories," said William K. Wong, Sigma's vice president of marketing. "We look forward to working with our customers as they develop products based on our reference design."

About Dolby Laboratories:

Dolby Laboratories, the world leader in multichannel audio technology, develops audio signal-processing systems for use in consumer audio and video products, consumer audio and video entertainment media, and professional sound applications that include music recording, broadcasting, and film sound. The privately-held company is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in New York, Los Angeles, Shanghai, and Tokyo and European headquarters in England.

About Sigma Designs:

Sigma Designs entered the multimedia market in 1993 with products based on the MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) standard for compressing and decompressing digital audio and video signals. Since then, Sigma has been a driving force behind advancement of the MPEG technology used in most multimedia products on the market today. Sigma Designs' products include affordable MPEG video and audio decoding hardware. All Sigma Designs products are sold worldwide through a network of dealers, distributors, and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

For additional information, call 800-845-8086 or 510-770-0100, fax 510-770-2640, or visit Sigma's web site at http://www.sigmadesigns.com # # # #

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