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To: Starlight who wrote (12490)	5/4/2000 12:09:00 AM
From: bob	Respond to of 18366

Fujitsu Expands Flash-Memory Production in its Gresham, Oregon, Facility to Meet Requirements of the Robust Mobile Market Company Will Invest More Than $500 Million in the Next Two Years and Add 300 Employees Over the Next Three Years GRESHAM, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 3, 2000-- Fujitsu Limited and Fujitsu Microelectronics, Inc. (FMI) today announced that production of flash-memory products will be expanded at FMI's Gresham, Oregon, manufacturing facility to meet the needs of the robust mobile products market. ``Fujitsu plans to invest $550 million in the next two years and hire 300 more employees at Gresham over the next three years,'' said Takashi Yabu, general manager of FMI's Gresham Manufacturing Division. This would raise total employment at the plant to about 800 by the year 2002. Worldwide Memory Strategy The Gresham wafer-fabrication facility started operation in October 1988 to produce leading-edge Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) products. In 10 years' time, the factory was expanded to a 545,000-sq.ft. facility, twice the size of the original plant. Responding to a continuing downturn of the DRAM market, in 1998 Fujitsu began shifting the focus of its worldwide memory strategy from PC main memory to flash memory and high-speed memory products such as Fast Cycle RAM(tm) (FCRAM). As part of the realignment of its global semiconductor manufacturing operations, Fujitsu decided to introduce flash memory production at Gresham. Fujitsu initially planned to expand the capacity of Gresham's flash-memory production line to 10,000 wafers per month. According to Kazunari Shirai, group president of Fujitsu's Electronic Devices Group in Japan, ``the company decided to triple the goal, to 30,000 wafers per month, to meet the robust demand for flash memory in cellular phones, handheld wireless devices and other mobile products.'' The Gresham production plan will take place under a wafer-foundery arrangement with Fujitsu AMD Semiconductor Limited (FASL). FASL is a joint-venture company established in 1993 between Fujitsu Limited and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Inc. ``Gresham will be one of Fujitsu's major flash-memory facilities and one of the most significant such facilities in the United States,'' said Shirai. ``Along with our FASL factories in Japan, we expect that Gresham will play an important role in Fujitsu's worldwide flash-memory operation.'' Corporate Information Fujitsu Limited (TSE: 6702) is a leading provider of Internet-based information technology solutions for the global marketplace. Comprising over 500 group companies and affiliates worldwide -- including ICL, Amdahl and DMR Consulting -- it had consolidated revenues of 5.26 trillion yen ($49.6 billion) in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2000. Fujitsu's pace-setting technologies, world-class computing and telecommunications platforms, and global corps of over 60,000 systems and services experts make it uniquely positioned to harness the power of the Internet to help its customers succeed. Altogether, the Fujitsu Group has 188,000 employees and operations in over 100 countries. Home page: fujitsu.co.jp. Fujitsu Microelectronics, Inc. designs, markets and manufactures a comprehensive portfolio of advanced semiconductors and electronic devices. For product information, call 800/866-8608 or visit the web site at fujitsumicro.com.

To: Starlight who wrote (12490)	5/4/2000 8:56:00 AM
From: Savant	Respond to of 18366

RT Speaking of... TTS............. BeVocal Announces Licensing Agreement With Lernout & Hauspie Consumer Voice Portal Pioneer to Employ L&H RealSpeak(TM) Technology To Provide Text-to-Speech for Location and Travel Services BeVocal Announces Licensing Agreement With Lernout & Hauspie Consumer Voice Portal Pioneer to Employ L&H RealSpeak(TM) Technology To Provide Text-to-Speech for Location and Travel Services SANTA CLARA, Calif., May 4, 2000 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- BeVocal, Inc., a consumer V-services pioneer that aims to make the widest variety of voice-enabled content, commerce, communications and customer service applications accessible from any phone, announced today that it will license Lernout & Hauspie's (L&H) (Nasdaq: LHSP; Easdaq: LHSP) L&H RealSpeak(TM) text-to-speech technology to voice-enable applications for consumers. L&H RealSpeak(TM), L&H's award winning natural sounding synthetic speech engine, will enable BeVocal's voice portal service to read aloud any text with a natural, human-sounding voice, providing consumers with dynamic, personalized information via mobile phones. BeVocal will use its patent-pending VocalBoost(TM) Architecture and L&H RealSpeak(TM) to make a broad range of personalized Web content and services available from any phone. Millions of callers can dial BeVocal's nationwide, toll-free number and immediately access voice-enabled information such as driving directions, store locations, travel reservations, and traffic reports. The Kelsey Group, a leading voice and mobile commerce consulting firm, forecasts that the total market for voice portal services and technologies will exceed $12 billion by 2005. On May 4-5, 2000 in Boston, MA, at the L&H Technology Days event, BeVocal will join L&H in briefing prospective partners, leading analysts, and members of the press on emerging trends in speech and language industry. BeVocal co-founder Amol Joshi will join speech industry luminary Gaston Bastiaens (President & CEO of L&H), noted inventor Ray Kurzweil ("Father of the Reading Machine"), and distinguished entrepreneur Janet Baker (Co-Founder & Chairman of Dragon Systems) on a panel discussion entitled "Speech Beyond the PC." Interested parties should contact L&H for more information. Amol Joshi, co-founder and Vice President of Product Marketing for BeVocal, said, "L&H has proven expertise in providing speech technology to wireless carriers and automotive companies for location and travel-related consumer applications. We are pleased to form this agreement with L&H to deliver the highest quality, industry standard in text-to-speech technology to BeVocal's callers nationwide." Gerald Calabrese, Senior Vice President of World-Wide Sales for L&H, stated, "BeVocal is an innovative company bringing must-have applications such as driving directions and travel information to wireless phone users. We are excited to work with BeVocal and to provide them with the industry's most natural sounding, synthetic voice to meet the enormous consumer demand for voice-enabled services. Working together, L&H and BeVocal can quickly bring to market a broad range of useful, consumer-friendly applications."