The STMP3600 Offers Lower Overall System Cost, Longer Battery Life and Smaller Form Factor Design Capabilities

AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 20, 2005-- SigmaTel, Inc. (NASDAQ:SGTL), a leader in mixed-signal multimedia semiconductors, today introduced the new STMP3600 System on Chip (SoC) solution for flash-based and hard disk-based digital multimedia players. The STMP3600 provides customers the ability to design and develop digital multimedia players with longer battery life, smaller form factors, and a higher level of processing power, all at a lower overall system cost.

"SigmaTel continues to be on the leading-edge of the digital multimedia market, providing highly integrated solutions, and the introduction of the STMP3600 solidifies SigmaTel's leadership position," said Mike Wodopian, Senior Vice President, Portable SoC Group at SigmaTel. "With the STMP3600, SigmaTel is providing its customers with a solution that significantly improves battery life, lowers overall system costs and provides form factor design capabilities that will allow them to stay competitive in today's ever changing consumer electronics market."

Compared to current high capacity flash-based players on the market, the SigmaTel STMP3600 provides up to an 80% increase in battery life and smaller form factor design capabilities through the integration of battery recharge, power management, audio codec, and flash controller on a single chip solution. With support for all major audio codecs including MP3, Windows Media Audio, AAC, and OGG Vorbis, the STMP3600 offers industry-leading audio quality (based on tests using Rhode and Schwarz Audio Analyzer technology). In addition to world class audio, the STMP3600 will support MPEG4, H.264 and WMV9 video codecs at varying resolutions and bit rates.

Based on the ARM926EJ-S CPU with up to a 200 MHz operating frequency, the STMP3600 has integrated USB2.0 host and device, USB on-the-go, VFIR, and a Digital Radio Interface supporting SigmaTel's soon to be announced FM tuner solution. High capacity flash-based players based on the STMP3600 can be enabled with as little as 2MB of external SDRAM, compared to comparable systems requiring 16-32MB.

In addition to the introduction of the STMP3600, SigmaTel is also announcing the availability of the STMP3600 Software Development Kit (SDK) 4.1 supporting Microsoft's(R) PlaysForSure version 1.2, based upon Microsoft Digital Rights Management (DRM) 10. Future support for Microsoft's PlaysForSure version 1.5 will be enabled in the first quarter of 2006 upon release by Microsoft. SDK 4.1 is built upon Express Logic's ThreadX(R) RTOS. Future board support packages supporting the Linux operating system will be released during the first quarter of 2006.

SigmaTel will be delivering flash-based and hard disk-based reference designs developed with the STMP3600, including all firmware, PCB and components in the fourth quarter of 2005. SigmaTel's hard drive-based reference design developed on the STMP3600 will implement file management and user interface from SigmaTel's Cambridge, UK design team to ensure exceptional high capacity functionality.

Availability

The STMP3600 and SDK 4.1 are now available for production orders for SigmaTel's beta customers. Customers interested in ordering the SDK 4.1 should contact the local sales office listed on the SigmaTel Web site at www.sigmatel.com or contact sales at sales@sigmatel.com.

For more information on the SigmaTel and the STMP3600, please visit www.sigmatel.com.

About SigmaTel:

SigmaTel, Inc. a fabless semiconductor company headquartered in Austin, Texas, designs, develops, and markets proprietary, analog intensive, mixed-signal ICs for a variety of digital multimedia products in the consumer electronics and computing markets, including portable compressed audio players, such as MP3 players, notebook and desktop PCs, digital video cameras, multi-function peripheral products, digital televisions and set-top boxes. SigmaTel provides complete, system-level solutions that include highly- integrated ICs, customizable firmware and software, software development tools, reference designs, and applications support. The Company's focus is on providing system-level solutions that enable customers to rapidly introduce and offer electronic products that are small, light-weight, power-efficient, reliable, and cost-effective. SigmaTel is ISO 9001:2000 certified and is committed to providing customers with high performance, quality products along with superior customer service.

Cautionary Language:

This press release contains forward-looking statements based on current SigmaTel expectations. The words "expect," "will," "should," "would," "anticipate," "project," "outlook," "believe," "intend," and similar phrases as they relate to SigmaTel or future events are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements reflect the current views and assumptions of SigmaTel, but are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. A number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements, and there will be events in the future that SigmaTel is not able to accurately predict or control. For a discussion of factors that could impact SigmaTel's financial results and cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements, please refer to recent SigmaTel filings with the SEC, particularly the Form 10-K that was filed on February 8, 2005 and the Form 10-Q that was filed on August 9, 2005.

SigmaTel is a registered trademark of SigmaTel, Inc. All other products and brand names as they appear in this release are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. All specifications may be changed without notice.

    CONTACT: SigmaTel Inc.
             Aaron De Lucia, 512-381-3994
             Press@sigmatel.com

    SOURCE: SigmaTel Inc.