Saifun Semiconductors Ltd. (now a Spansion company)

www.saifun.com

Now Cypress Semiconductors

High-Tech Company

Acquired by Spansion Inc.

TECH VERTICALS

Memory & Storage

General Data

Sector	Semiconductors
Company Stage:	Revenue Growth
Established	1997
Number of Employees	236

DESCRIPTION

Saifun is a provider of intellectual property (IP) solutions for the non-volatile memory (NVM) market. The company's innovative Saifun NROM(R) technology allows semiconductor manufacturers to deliver high performance, reliable products at a lower cost per megabit, with greater storage capacity, using a single process for all NVM applications. Saifun licenses its IP to semiconductor manufacturers who use this technology to develop and manufacture a variety of stand-alone and embedded NVM products. These include Flash memory for the telecommunications, consumer electronic, networking and automotive markets.

TECHNOLOGY

Non Volatile Memory (NVM)/ Saifun NROM for Code and Data Flash, Serial Flash,
EEPROM and Embedded (SoC).
Non-volatile memory (NVM) devices retain stored information even without a power source. Products using NVM technology include mobile phones, still and video digital cameras, personal digital assistants, or PDAs, portable computers, portable digital music players, digital video recorders, set-top boxes, communication routers and switches, digital televisions and other electronic systems. Each of these products requires a non-volatile memory device to store the product’s operating system and an increasing capacity to store photographs, video, music and documents.

NROM technology represents a breakthrough in the non-volatile memory market as it offers a number of significant advantages over existing non-volatile memory technology. These advantages include a doubling of storage capacity of a basic semiconductor memory cell resulting from our two-bit-per-cell and four-bit-per-cell architectures and a simpler cell architecture that enable semiconductor manufacturers to reduce manufacturing costs as a result of fewer manufacturing steps. In addition, NROM is the only commercially-available technology that can be applied to all segments of the non-volatile memory market using the same manufacturing process.

Non-volatile memory devices based on our NROM technology contain a trapping nitride layer which stores the charge, instead of a floating gate suspended above the cell. The nitride layer is surrounded by two insulating silicon dioxide layers. A charge may be accumulated and confined at each end of the nitride layer, effectively storing two separate and independent charges. Each charge can be maintained in one of two states, either “programmed” or “erased,” represented by the presence or absence of a pocket of trapped electrons. This enables the storage of two bits of information without the complexities associated with multi-level-cell technology.

ESTIMATED ANNUAL SALES

Year	Amount
2006	500
2005	490
2004	480
2003	470
2002	460
2001	450
2000	440

	TARGET MARKETS
	Manufacturers of cellular phones, computers and peripherals, set-top boxes and digital cameras.

	BUSINESS MODEL
	B2B

SERVICE PROVIDERS

Company Name	Type
abC Defghij	Accounting Firm
abC Defghij	Investment Bank
abC Defghij	Law Firm

REMARKS

Date	Remark
01/10/2007	Spansion Inc. acquired Saifun Semiconductors Ltd. and turned it into its Israeli R&D center.

CONTACT INFO

Expand / Collapse All

Main Address: Netanya, Israel

Address	45 Hamelacha St., ELROD Bldg., Sappir Industrial Park
POB	8385
City	Netanya
Country	Israel
Zip	42504

Contact Person	abC Defghij
Contact E-Mail	abC Defghij
Company E-mail	abC Defghij
Telephone	abC Defghij
Fax	abC Defghij

Branch Address: Santa Clara, United States

Address	2350 Mission College Blvd., Suite 1070
City	Santa Clara
State/Province	CA
Country	United States
Zip	95054

Contact Person	abC Defghij
Contact E-Mail	abC Defghij
Company E-mail	abC Defghij
Telephone	abC Defghij
Fax	abC Defghij

	MANAGEMENT

Key Executive

Name	Title	Previous Position
Mr. Bob Hoard	VP, Worldwide Sales
Mr. Dev Nair	Director of Marketing
Dr. Boaz Eitan	Founder	Saifun (CEO)

	BOARD

Board

Member	Title	Affiliation
abC Defghij	Board Member	VP, Finance & CFO, Marvell Technology Group Ltd.
abC Defghij	Board Member	Founder & Managing Partner, Concord
abC Defghij	Board Member	Chairman, KLA-Tencor Corp.
abC Defghij	Board Member	Co-owner of Adres Ltd.

Mergers & Acquisitions

Round

Date

Stage

Amount

Valuation

Acquired

Oct. 08, 2007

abCDe

Public Offerings

Deal Date	Type of Offering	Exchange	Amount Raise	Valuation	Remarks
Apr. 04, 2006	Second Public Offering	NASDAQ GS	abCDe	abCDe	Including Green Shoe option.
Nov. 09, 2005	IPO	NASDAQ GS	abCDe	abCDe	Including Green Shoe option.

	FINANCIAL ROUNDS

Total Capital Raised
abCDe

Financial Rounds

Numbers of Investors

Expand / Collapse All

Round

Date

Stage

Amount

Valuation

Buyout

Mar. 20, 2005

abCDe

* New investor

Investor	Type	Amount	Remarks
abC Defghij	N/A	abCDe	Holds 5.1% of the company; acquired 4.5% from Infineon for $27m, and 1% from Boaz Eitan for $5m, according to a company valuation of $600m.

Secondary Deal

Jan. 01, 2005

abCDe

Buyout

Dec. 09, 2004

abCDe

Other

Sep. 29, 2002

abCDe

* New investor

Investor	Type	Amount	Remarks
abC Defghij	Venture Capital Fund	abCDe
abC Defghij	Venture Capital Fund	abCDe	Investment was made By Clal, the company is held (8.5%) by Infinity

Other

Aug. 04, 2002

Initial Revenues

abCDe

* New investor

Investor	Type	Amount	Remarks
abC Defghij	Corporate VC	abCDe	Part of a legal settlement; holds 2% of the company
abC Defghij	High-Tech Company	abCDe	Part of a legal settlement; holds 10% of the company

Second Round

Oct. 01, 2000

R&D

abCDe

* New investor

Investor	Type	Amount	Remarks
abC Defghij	Venture Capital Fund	abCDe	Holds 6.9% of the company
abC Defghij	Corporate VC	abCDe
abC Defghij	Bank	abCDe
abC Defghij	Holding Company	abCDe	Holds 8.9% of the company
abC Defghij	Other	abCDe
abC Defghij	Other	abCDe
abC Defghij	Other	abCDe	Sold its 4.5% holding to Efi Gildor for $27m on February 2005
abC Defghij	Other	abCDe
abC Defghij	Private Investor	abCDe
abC Defghij	Investment Management Company	abCDe
abC Defghij	High-Tech Company	abCDe	12/05: sold its 2.5% holding for $15m
abC Defghij	Private Investor	abCDe
abC Defghij	Other	abCDe

First Round

May. 01, 1998

Seed

abCDe

* New investor

Investor	Type	Amount	Remarks
abC Defghij	Venture Capital Fund	abCDe	Holds 3% of the company
abC Defghij	Venture Capital Fund	abCDe
abC Defghij	Investment Bank	abCDe
abC Defghij	High-Tech Company	abCDe	Sold 8% holding to Clal for $31m, 1.5% to Gemini and 0.5% to Concord for $8m

	PORTFOLIO COMPANIES

Historic Portfolio (2)

Company Name

Sector

Round/Deal Type

Date Announced

Investor Amount

Total Deal Amount

Remarks

Infineon Technologies Flash

Ceased to Operate

Semicon.

Seed

08/05/2001

N/A

Sold its 30% holding to Infineon in January 2004 for $18.6m

Infinite Memory

Ceased to Operate

Semicon.

Seed

24/03/2008

N/A

$6m

Last Updated:	abCDe
IVC Number:	abCDe