Centellax Wins Prestigious 2002 Comet Award

Centellax, Inc., a leading provider of high-speed electronic components for the 40 Gb/s optical communications market, has been awarded the 2002 Comet Award. The Comet Award honors companies that are on track to become vital players in the communications industry.

Centellax Wins Prestigious 2002 Comet Award
Recognized as one of 2002s hottest" young communications companies

San Jose, Calif., -- October 7, 2002 -- Centellax, Inc., a leading provider of high-speed electronic components for the 40 Gb/s optical communications market, has been awarded the 2002 Comet Award. The Comet Award honors companies that are on track to become vital players in the communications industry.

The selection team included editors from Communication Systems Design, EE Times and CommsDesign.com, which developed and evaluated a list of the hottest" young communication companies in the market. Centellax was selected as a winner from this list of more than 70 companies. Previous Comet Award winners include Juniper Networks, Sycamore, Globespan and ONI Systems.

We award the Comet to companies such as Centellax that have illustrated that they possess the vision, the technology, and the risk-taking mentality required to steer their way through the communication market and turn into the big players of tomorrow," said Rob Keenan, editor-in-chief of CommsDesign.com. Past Comet Award winners have successfully led in technological advancements within the communications industry, and we expect this year's winners to continue to do the same."

We are delighted to receive the 2002 Comet Award in honor of our growing industry leadership," said Julio Perdomo, CEO. Centellax, since its inception in April, 2001, has been able to bring products to market quickly that are enabling the next generation of optical communications. Our 40 Gb/s broadband Driver Amplifiers and MUX/DEMUX products are very high performance and offer improved value when compared to previous generation technologies."

Centellax was presented the Comet Award on September 23 at an awards ceremony at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, California. The awards ceremony took place in conjunction with the Communications Design Conference, September 23-26 at the San Jose Convention Center.

About Communication Systems Design
Communications System Design (www.commsdesign.com) is the technical magazine for engineers and managers involved in the design of communications products, systems and equipment for Personal, Home/SoHo, Enterprise, and Infrastructure applications. The editorial focuses on the development of these applications, current technologies enabling these designs and the emerging technologies that will affect future designs. With a qualified circulation of 40,000 communications engineers and managers, Communications Systems Design is published by CMP Media LLC.

About Centellax
Centellax, Inc. designs and develops high-speed components for the OC-768 market, providing solutions for short-haul, metro, long-haul, and ultra long-haul optical communication networks. Using state-of-the-art processes, proven technologies and innovative design, the company offers integrated circuit products operating at 40 Gb/s and beyond. Privately held, Centellax was incorporated in early April 2001 by a team of veteran telecommunications industry engineers. The company is headquartered in Santa Rosa, Calif., with additional design facilities in Carlsbad, Calif.

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