FREMONT, Calif. -- March 4, 1999 -- Cirrus Logic Inc (NASDAQ:CRUS) today announced that its 3CI™ system-on-a-chip hard disk drive (HDD) platform has been selected from a field of hundreds of candidates as a finalist in the EDN 1998 Innovation of the Year Awards Competition. This prestigious awards program, sponsored by EDN Magazine, is dedicated to honoring truly outstanding engineering products in the electronics industry.

Winners of the 1998 Innovation of the Year Awards will be chosen by EDN's worldwide readers through an online ballot at the EDN Access web site (www.ednmag.com). Cirrus Logic invites you to visit the EDN web site to review the magazine's comments on 3CI and to cast your vote for innovation of the year. Winning products will be announced at a special ceremony on April 27, 1999 and will be displayed in the May 13, 1999 issue of EDN.

Cirrus Logic's 3CI platform is the only system-on-a-chip for HDD designs that has successfully integrated a mixed-signal read channel in standard CMOS, making it the industry's most highly integrated solution. By leveraging its mixed-signal expertise, Cirrus Logic was able to integrate a partial-response-maximum-likelihood (PRML) read channel with an Ultra DMA 33 hard disk controller and 32-bit ARM core processor all on a single-chip. This unprecedented level of integration significantly reduces the overall drive cost as the only system functions needed to create a complete HDD design are the pre-amp, motor drivers and buffer memory.

"We are honored to be nominated as a finalist for an EDN 1998 Innovation of the Year Award," said Steve Dines, vice president and general manager of Cirrus Logic's Mass Storage Division. "When you consider how many ICs were announced in 1998, EDN's recognition of our 3CI platform is truly a testament to the unprecedented mixed-signal advancements achieved by our design team."

To qualify for the 1998 EDN Innovation award the product or technology must have been introduced and commercially marketed from January 1, 1998 through December 31, 1998. Nine major product/technology areas were eligible for consideration: analog ICs and discrete semiconductors; components; hardware and interconnects; computers and peripherals; digital ICs; EDA tools; embedded computing; microprocessors; power sources; and test and measurement. A panel of EDN editors selected Cirrus Logic's 3CI platform to be a finalist in the broad Digital ICs category.

Cirrus Logic is a premier supplier of precision linear circuits and advanced mixed-signal chip solutions. The company's products, sold under its own name and the Crystal product brand, enable system-level applications in mass storage, audio and precision data conversion. Additional information about Cirrus Logic is available at www.cirrus.com.

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Note to editors: Cirrus Logic is a registered trademark and 3CI is a trademark of Cirrus Logic Inc. All other product names noted herein may be trademarks of their respective holders.