Octasic Partners with Marubun Corporation to Deliver High-density Voice over Packet Solutions to Japanese Market

Octasic announces a partnership with Marubun Corporation, Japan's leading electronics and electronic components distributor, to deliver Octasic's high-density co-processors in Japan.

MONTREAL, CA - February 7, 2003 - Octasic Inc., a fabless semiconductor vendor delivering innovative silicon solutions for the Voice over Packet (VoP) telecommunications infrastructure market, today announced a partnership with Marubun Corporation, Japan's leading electronics and electronic components distributor, to deliver Octasic's high-density co-processors in Japan.

"Marubun Corporation is a widely recognized distributor in the Japanese market, with a long history of excellent customer service," said Yoshinori Hirano, Director Asia-Pacific Sales, Octasic Inc. "We look forward to leveraging their vast business network and reputation for top quality support to serve our customers in Japan."

"Octasic's innovative design approach allows the delivery of optimized high-density silicon solutions for the VoP market," said Yutaka Narumai, Manager, Sales and Marketing with Marubun Corporation. "We are pleased to include this industry-leading line of unique, high quality products in our portfolio of electronic components."

With a network of manufacturing representatives in North America, Europe, and now Asia, Octasic is well positioned to deliver its high-density co-processors to the international telecommunications market. Octasic's specialized products include the OCT8304, a 1023 channel full-duplex packetization engine for VoIP and VoAAL2 applications; the OCT7102, a 255 channel ADPCM compression device; and the OCT6100 series of echo cancellation and voice quality enhancement products, which support up to 672 voice channels in a single chip.

About Octasic
Founded in 1998, Octasic is a fabless semiconductor company based in Montreal, Canada that designs, markets, and supports best-in-class silicon solutions for Voice over Packet (VoP) telecommunications infrastructure market. Our innovative approach involves application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) that perform the key VoP functions: packetization, aggregation and mediation; compression; and echo cancellation. These specialized, high-density co-processors allow communications equipment providers to benefit from optimal scalability, and unmatched performance in terms of density, cost, and power consumption.

For more information about Octasic and our products, please visit our website at www.octasic.com or email us at sales@octasic.com to locate your local representative.

About Marubun
In 1844, dry good wholesaler "Horikoshi" started a business, at the site of the present company headquarters, which went by the name "Marubun"; later operations were expanded to include export of silk thread and import of Western dry goods. Today, Marubun Corporation, based in Tokyo, Japan, is the leading "independent" electronics and electronic components Distribution Company in Japan. Marubun provides a broad range of electronic products with technical support in all fields, including semiconductor and electronic devices, software, computer, multimedia and telecommunication, space and defense electronics, industrial equipment, test and measurement equipment, vacuum equipment, lasers and optoelectronics devices, and DLP-based visual equipment and devices. Marubun is listed on the First Market of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. For additional information regarding Marubun, please visit www.marubun.co.jp or www.marubun.co.jp/english/index_e.jsp.

Press Contacts:

Paige McEachren
Communications Manager
Octasic
Tel: 514.282.8863
paige.mceachren@octasic.com

Carman Chan Director, Sales Greater China/SE Asia
Octasic
Tel: 1.514.282.8858 ext. 896
carman.chan@octasic.com

Yutaka Narumai Manager - Sales and Marketing
Marubun Corporation
Tel: +81.3.3639.8951
ynarumai@marubun.co.jp