XIONICS ANNOUNCES INTELLIGENT PERIPHERAL SYSTEM SCALEABLE, NETWORK- READY
PRINT AND MULTIFUNCTION CORE CONTROLLER SOLUTION

Extensible Technology Provides Performance, Quality and Network
Connectivity for the Office Computing Market

BURLINGTON, MASS.---May 13, 1996 - Xionics Document Technologies, Inc.
(XDT) today announced the Intelligent Peripheral System (IPS), a single,
cost-effective controller solution for professional-quality computer
peripherals. The IPS enables original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to
develop complete families of advanced printers and multifunction
peripherals (MFPs) using a common software architecture and controller
design.

The IPS addresses the new multiplicity of electronic document formats
associated with the continued growth of network computing and the
emergence of Internet printing. The product incorporates XDT's scaleable
Dataflow Operating System and industry leading software emulations of
Hewlett-Packard's Printer Control Language (PCL 5E and 5C) for
high-quality, high-speed printing of text-intensive business documents and
PostScript Level 2 for printing more complex documents with integrated
text, business graphics and scanned (digitized) images. Development is
underway to add the newly announced HP PCL 6 language to the IPS early in
1997. Unlike other multi-emulation printing technologies that utilize
disparate imaging kernels, IPS employs a single, shared kernel that
improves system throughput and software portability. More than 1.5 million
products incorporating XDT's page description language software have been
installed worldwide.

The IPS Dataflow OS features automatic switching between printer languages
to ensure the reliable, high-quality output of print jobs without any
physical user interaction. Built-in IPS network services support a variety
of network protocols and commercially available network interface cards
(NICs).

The IPS is available in modular software and software/hardware packages
that support custom combinations of print, digital copy, scan and fax
capabilities with the architectural flexibility to allow OEMs to add
printer languages, system functions and hardware co-processors that target
specific market niches.

"Printers are rapidly evolving into next-generation office peripherals,
migrating from single function devices supporting sequential functions to
peripherals supporting concurrent printing, copying, scanning and faxing,"
said Bob Gilkes, Xionics' Chief Executive Officer. "We have leveraged the
acquisition we made 18 months ago in printing software technology into a
core peripheral controller for advanced single-function printers and
MFPs."

Accelerating Peripheral Controller Development

With the IPS, XDT is introducing a fundamental change in embedded
peripheral controller design that streamlines the development of
customized peripherals. The modular IPS software architecture enables OEMs
to quickly and easily develop custom products by providing a
device-independent support layer between the peripheral controller and the
printer languages and system functions.

The IPS Dataflow OS includes a complete set of essential core peripheral
controller services that are shared by PCL, PostScript and MFP functions.
These basic core components and pre-ported printer languages free the
OEM's engineering resources to design unique product differentiation into
their peripherals. The OS also includes XDT's XipPower Application
Programming Interface (API). The API provides an open architecture that
enables OEMs to easily incorporate additional capabilities like Internet
printing.

Advanced Silicon for High-Speed, Concurrent Multifunction Processing

XDT identified the need for advanced silicon solutions to provide the
throughput and concurrent functionality required by networked MFPs. The
IPS technology combines XDT's XipChip Multiprocessor CPU with the
company's print, copy, scan and fax software services in a highly
integrated controller solution. XipChip implements a dedicated print
processor, copy processor, high-speed industry-standard compression and an
imaging processor in a single application specific integrated circuit
(ASIC). This solution reduces overall controller chip count while
providing concurrency processing and "balanced" (print, copy, scan speeds
the same) system throughput.

Lowering Peripheral Development Costs

New printer languages, higher resolution and color applications demand
increased levels of system memory that can add considerable cost to the
controller. To minimize controller memory costs, the IPS incorporates
XDT's patented SoftBand memory management system. Using a sophisticated
combination of advanced display list page rendering techniques, memory
management services, data compression, complexity metrics and data
analysis, SoftBand allows printers to output most 600 dpi monochrome files
in 1 MB RAM. The XipChip Multiprocessor CPU extends memory reduction for
MFPs using G3/G4 and JBIG compression and decompression and an ultra high
speed memory interface channel which further optimizes memory usage and
efficiency.

In addition, the IPS technology is extensible for products ranging from
very high-performance to very low-cost, improving the OEM's return on
investment through the use of a single, scaleable technology base in whole
families of products.

"For the past eight years, XDT has been a premier supplier of
high-performance, electronic document I/O solutions for all types of
computer peripheral devices," said Bob Gilkes. "The IPS technology
reinforces XDT's commitment to the peripheral market and will extend our
solid track record in next-generation OEM product integration," Gilkes
said.

Xionics Document Technologies, Inc. (XDT) is a leading developer and
marketer of innovative controller software and embedded microprocessors
for printing, scanning, copying, processing and transmitting paper
documents to computer peripherals. XDT partners with the industry's
leading original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to develop peripherals
that provide the performance, output quality and network connectivity for
today's office computing market.

Xionics Document Technologies was formed in 1994 by the merger of the
Peripherals Division of Phoenix Technologies Ltd. and Xionics, Inc.
Privately held, the company's corporate headquarters is based in
Burlington, Massachusetts, with offices in Japan, Germany and the United
Kingdom.
 
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