Broadcom release containing statement of President/CEO Henry Nicholas.
Re: Intel's filing of a Complaint for Patent Infringement.
Date: September 5, 2000.
Source: Broadcom.
Editor's Note: the "forward looking statements" disclaimer and trademark notice have been omitted.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE- September 05, 2000

Broadcom Issues Statement on Intel Patent Lawsuit

IRVINE, Calif. - September 5, 2000 -Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM) today issued the following statement by Dr. Henry T. Nicholas III, its President and CEO, regarding Intel Corporation's patent lawsuit against Broadcom, filed on August 30:

As a general rule, we prefer not to issue statements on pending litigation. However, given the provocative nature of Intel's recent claims, we feel it necessary to address them in this manner.

It is regrettable that Intel - a great company, a worthy competitor, an early investor in Broadcom and indeed our business partner today in some areas - would once again resort to specious litigation in the courts rather than competition in the marketplace. We each need to give our top priority to serving our respective customers in these rapidly growing market areas.

Before commenting specifically on this lawsuit, I would like to make three points:

First, contrary to some outrageous allegations and statements made by Intel, Broadcom firmly believes in the sanctity of intellectual property. We work diligently to protect our hard-earned intellectual property, we absolutely respect the intellectual property of others, and we expect others to respect ours. As a young company we are just now developing our patent portfolio, but already Broadcom holds 22 allowed United States patents and has about 350 additional U.S. patent applications pending, covering the many cutting edge technologies that we have developed and are taking to market.

Second, the notion that we need to misappropriate Intel's technology to compete is nonsense. It is widely recognized in the industry and investment community that Broadcom, not Intel, is the leader in digital cable TV, cable modem, Gigabit Ethernet, home networking, and other key 21st Century communications IC technologies. Intel's allegations are an insult to the more than 1,000 Broadcom engineers who work day and night to develop these technologies.

Finally, we view this lawsuit as just the latest in a troubling practice by Intel to rely on litigation as a standard business tactic to slow not only Broadcom but any competitor who poses a serious threat to Intel in the marketplace. The real victims of this tactic are our mutual customers and the pace of innovation in our industry.

Although we have had only a few days to look into the merits of this case, an initial review of Intel's allegations confirms our belief that this lawsuit is a baseless and transparent attempt to create fear, uncertainty and doubt in our customers, strategic partners and the investment community, and is not supported by the facts.

Much of Intel's complaint is simply a rehash of allegations brought in another lawsuit earlier this year, in which Intel attempted to block Broadcom's employment of three former Intel employees, described by the court as "three of the brightest, most capable engineers and managers available." In that ongoing case, the court has already rejected Intel's primary objective, which was to remove these engineers from their current jobs at Broadcom and thereby retard our ability to compete with Intel. After a nine day hearing, the court found that the affected employees had not disclosed any Intel trade secrets, were trustworthy, and could be relied upon to protect Intel's trade secrets while doing their new jobs at Broadcom. They remain in those jobs today.

We are convinced that Intel's true motive in the earlier case was and is to deter its own employees from exercising their right to seek better job opportunities at Broadcom, not the protection of Intel intellectual property.

A fourth former employee, who Intel claims was a conduit for trade secrets to Broadcom during the job interview process, was in fact never hired by us. As to that employee, we are confident that when all the facts are presented to a jury, Intel's concerns and allegations will be shown to be unfounded.

Finally, Intel has failed to confess that, after hearing the evidence in the earlier case, the Court specifically concluded that Intel itself had apparently misappropriated and used Broadcom's Gigabit Ethernet Physical Layer (PHY) technology without authorization. Intel's misconduct is the subject of a cross-complaint that Broadcom filed against Intel on June 30, 2000.

Beyond rehashing old allegations, the August 30 lawsuit contains a vague set of generic patent infringement claims that fail to identify even one specific Broadcom product that allegedly infringes. In fact, Intel made no effort to give us any prior notice of these patents or to discuss with us which Broadcom products allegedly infringe them.

Of the five patents asserted by Intel, four are related to areas where Broadcom conforms to widely-followed industry standards. Three involve the area of video compression and decompression, in which Broadcom's products merely implement the popular and ubiquitous MPEG-2 industry standard. Our engineers have concluded that the three patents apparently relate to Intel's outmoded Digital Video Interactive product line, which was obsoleted by the international MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 standards.

Another patent, which issued recently and which our engineers believe to be invalid, relates to chip packaging. Our BGA-packaged chips are packaged by the largest and most respected independent assembly companies in the world using the same standard BGA technology that many of the industry's leading companies used for years before Intel applied for its patent.

The last patent asserted by Intel is a twelve-year-old patent that appears to relate to networking systems, rather than integrated circuits. Our engineers have been unable to identify any Broadcom product that it conceivably relates to or how it has any relevance to the products we sell.

In sum, we intend to defend ourselves vigorously in this matter, and we expect to prevail. Meanwhile, our management team will continue to focus on our business, competing aggressively but fairly in the marketplace, hiring the brightest minds in the industry, developing cutting-edge products and bringing them quickly to market - all the things that have made us successful from the beginning, and, understandably, a real threat to older, more entrenched companies attempting to retool to participate in the broadband communications revolution. We will continue to win in our markets and earn our success the old-fashioned way - through hard work, breakthrough technology and unwavering emphasis on execution to meet the product needs of our customers.

About Broadcom

Broadcom Corporation is the leading provider of highly integrated silicon solutions that enable broadband digital transmission of voice, video, and data. Using proprietary technologies and advanced design methodologies, the company designs, develops and supplies integrated circuits for a number of the most significant broadband communications markets, including the markets for cable set-top boxes, cable modems, high-speed office networks, home networking, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), residential broadband gateways, direct broadcast satellite and terrestrial digital broadcast, optical networking, digital subscriber lines (xDSL) and wireless communications. Broadcom is headquartered in Irvine, Calif., and may be contacted at 949-450-8700 or at www.broadcom.com.