Centillium Communications, Inc.

Laurie Falconer
Centillium Communications, Inc.
(510) 771-3647
[email protected]

CENTILLIUM COMMUNICATIONS' ENTROPIA DELIVERS UNPRECEDENTED 336 VOICE OVER PACKET CHANNEL CAPACITY ON A SINGLE CHIP

Centillium Marks Another Industry First By Providing the Highest Capacity Voice Over ATM Solution on a Single Chip

FREMONT, Calif., October 30, 2000 - Centillium Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTLM), innovator of broadband communications technology, today announced the delivery of its Entropia Voice over Packet (VoP) chip, which supports up to 336 full duplex Pulse Code Modulated (PCM) channels via Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) Adaptation Layer Type 1 (AAL1) traffic. Entropia provided support for 256 full duplex Adaptive Differential PCM (ADPCM32) AAL2 channels in its initial release in July 2000. With this new release of the Entropia chip, Centillium's customers can handle either AAL1 or AAL2 traffic.

By using the AAL1 protocol, service providers can take advantage of existing ATM data networks to deliver packetized voice services, with no compression, thereby ensuring a high level of quality to the end users. Because AAL2 provides for voice compression, service providers can very efficiently utilize ATM networks to carry much higher volumes of voice traffic. Both protocols are in demand by service providers, who have a significant level of investment in ATM data networks and wish to run voice services in addition to the data traffic.

"This newest Entropia release demonstrates Centillium's continued leadership and innovation in the VoP market," said Dr. Mohan Kinra, Director of Marketing for VoP products, Centillium Communications, Inc. "We are the first to develop such a powerful, efficient and cost-effective single chip solution. More importantly, this solution is already sampling in our customer base."

"Entropia is literally changing the way new products are built, thus allowing for the integration of the gateways at the edge of the network while enabling the gateways at the core of the network to deliver much higher capacities than previously contemplated," added Babu Mandava, General Manager, Networking Business Unit, Centillium Communications.

Entropia VoP Chip
The highly integrated Entropia chip combines hardware, firmware and software to deliver a complete high-density, low-power packet voice capability in a single small form-factor device. Entropia replaces the current practice of using general-purpose DSPs (capable of processing only 6-12 channels of voice) and discrete network processors with a high-capacity system-on-a-chip solution that increases the voice processing by a factor of over 25 while implementing all of the network processor functionality on the chip. Entropia's innovative Asynchronous Computing Engine (ACE) architecture enables the high performance processing of voice traffic on a single device while maintaining quality of service. The ultra high voice processing capability is made possible by the use of Centillium's proprietary Sigma DSP, which is capable of 7.2 GMACs on a single chip.

Entropia is a software programmable platform on which most of the networking and voice/telephony processing functions are implemented in software, which allows ultimate flexibility and field upgrade-ability for future voice coders, network protocols and other features.

Applications
Entropia is designed to provide full convergence gateway functionality on a single chip. This level of integration and flexibility makes it an ideal platform to use in Digital Loop Carriers, DSLAMs, Collapsed Central Office Switches, Core Network Gateways, IADs as well as edge switches and routers. In the Voice Gateway applications, Entropia can be used to increase the density and reduce complexity of existing designs while increasing the flexibility of the OEM's end product.

In Digital Loop Carriers, customers can groom the voice traffic onto service cards on which Entropia can process and packetize the voice for delivery over the broadband data networks and bypass the local CLASS 5 switch. In addition, the Entropia based service card can convert the incoming VoDSL traffic into traditional PSTN traffic and hand it off to the CLASS5 switches.

Entropia also enables the next generation DSLAMs to be transformed into multiservice platforms capable of delivering data, digital voice as well as POTS over the same copper wire.

About Centillium Communications
Centillium Communications, Inc. is combining technical innovation and customer commitment to make broadband communications a market reality. Centillium consistently delivers value to its customers by providing broadband networking systems for applications across all market segments. The company designs and markets communications chipset solutions for central office equipment, digital loop carrier (DLC) line cards, and customer premise equipment for Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), Voice over Packet (VoP) and Premise Networking. The Centillium Communications headquarters are located at 47211 Lakeview Blvd., Fremont, CA 94538. Additional information is available at www.centillium.com.

Forward Looking Statements
Except for historical information contained in this press release, the foregoing contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements based on a variety of risks and uncertainties, including the risks and uncertainties relating to actual quantities and timing of any orders received under the contract and the successful development and market acceptance of Centillium's new products. The company assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof. Information about potential factors that could affect Centillium's financial results is included in Centillium's Annual Report on Form 10-K and most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, available for viewing on the Securities and Exchange Commission's website at www.sec.gov.

Centillium Communications and the Centillium logo are trademarks of Centillium Communications.