Spansion(R) EcoRAM(TM) Solution Delivers 60X Performance Improvement for Modeling...

Spansion(R) EcoRAM(TM) Solution Delivers 60X Performance Improvement for
Modeling and Visualization Applications in Oil and Gas Industry

Stanford Exploration Project Selects Spansion EcoRAM Solution to Dramatically
Reduce Processing Time

SUNNYVALE, Calif., April 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Spansion Inc. (Nasdaq:
SPSN), the world's largest pure-play provider of Flash memory solutions, today
announced that the Spansion(R) EcoRAM(TM) Solution is delivering a 60X
performance improvement to the oil and gas industry for visualization and
other read-intensive applications. The Stanford Exploration Project recently
selected the Spansion EcoRAM solution to reduce the processing time of
multi-Terabyte datasets and for the first time make visualization of half a
Terabyte (512 Gigabytes) datasets possible from typical x86 servers.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060118/SFW077LOGO)

The Spansion EcoRAM Solution is designed to enable very high density main
memory of up to half a Terabyte in today's standard x86 servers with low power
consumption and high performance. By delivering up to eight times the memory
capacity of typical x86 servers, Spansion EcoRAM solution-enabled servers are
capable of storing vast amounts of data close to the CPU to enable high-speed
processing. The solution, a flash memory based DRAM alternative, is ideally
suited for use with read-intensive applications like visualization and
modeling for the oil and gas Industry.

"The Spansion EcoRAM solution is a breakthrough memory architecture for our
read-intensive applications like visualization and data transpose," said
Robert Clapp, senior research engineer of Geophysics, Stanford Exploration
Project, Stanford University. "A step in the processing flow that would
normally take 22 hours to complete using the standard disk to DRAM
architecture can now be performed in 22 minutes using the Spansion EcoRAM
solution. We're seeing performance improvements approaching two orders of
magnitude better than our existing system. It's quite impressive."

The performance bottleneck for visualization and data reordering applications
is the architecture of today's x86 server with disk storage and DRAM main
memory. The size of datasets are well beyond the supported DRAM memory
capacity in typical servers. Applications that need to read data randomly,
rather than sequentially, are very inefficient in a disk to DRAM processing
scheme. With the Spansion EcoRAM solution, large amounts of data can be can
be loaded in main memory and continually accessed without going back to disk.
In the future, researchers hope to move beyond the need to constantly write
intermediate volumes to disk but instead do real-time processing and
visualization. The Spansion EcoRAM solution presents the first technology
that has the potential to make this a reality.

"The Stanford application is a great example of how the Spansion EcoRAM
solution can be harnessed to provide breakthrough levels of performance that
are resulting in significant benefits to end users," said Jan Silverman, vice
president, Server Solutions Business Unit, Spansion Inc. "Beyond the system
level performance increases, the Spansion EcoRAM solution enables up to a 4X
server consolidation in the data center which translates into a significant
total cost of ownership savings."

The Stanford Exploration Project (SEP) is an industry-funded academic
consortium whose purpose is to research improvements in the theory and
practice of constructing 3-D and 4-D images of the earth. SEP sponsors
include the top oil and gas and geophysical survey companies including: BP
America Inc., BGP Americas Inc., BHP Billiton Petroleum (Americas, Inc.),
CGGVeritas, Chevron Energy Technology Company, ConocoPhillips, Eni S.p.A. E&P
Division, ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company, Fairfield Industries Inc.,
Fugro Seismic Imaging, Inc., GX Technology Corporation, Hess Corporation,
Landmark Graphics Corporation, Marathon Oil Company, Nexen Petroleum USA Inc.,
Petrobras (Petroleo Brasileiro S.A.), PGS (Petroleum Geo-Services), Repsol
Services Company, Saudi Aramco, Shell International E&P Inc., StatoilHydro
ASA, TGS-NOPEC Geophysical Company, TOTAL E&P Services, Weinman GeoScience,
WesternGeco, U.K.

Credited for pioneering many innovations since its inception in the 1970s, the
SEP plans to issue a report to the SEP sponsors companies on the applicability
of the Spansion EcoRAM solution to the oil and gas industry, in addition to
utilizing the platform in its own research.

General Availability of the Spansion EcoRAM Solution

The Spansion EcoRAM solution is available today with capacities up to 512GB
per server. Systems with the Spansion EcoRAM solution are now available from
Appro, a leading provider of supercomputing solutions with expertise in the
high performance computing (HPC) markets.

"Leveraging technology like the Spansion EcoRAM solution will allow Appro to
meet the high capacity main memory needs of high performance computing
customers while providing cost-effective solutions using standard x86
platforms," said Daniel Kim, CEO of Appro. "We are excited to be partnering
with Spansion and offering two-socket or four-socket systems with the Spansion
EcoRAM solution."

In addition, Virdient System's GreenCloud(TM) server line will use the
Spansion EcoRAM Solution for applications in Internet Data Centers. The
Spansion EcoRAM solution is compatible with a large number of 64-bit Linux
applications. The Spansion EcoRAM Solution can also be exploited for
read-intensive applications in areas like analytics, bioinformatics, business
intelligence, government, internet, and oil and gas or can be used as a
"drop-in" augmentation for hadoop clusters.

About Spansion EcoRAM Memory

Spansion EcoRAM memory supports read latencies in hundreds of nanoseconds,
which is competitive with server DRAM latencies. By comparison, this is
10,000X faster than hard disk drives (latencies in milliseconds) and up to
100X faster that state of the art solid state drives (latencies in
microseconds). Read bandwidth reaches up to 2.2 gigabytes per second (GB/s)
or over 20x compared to typical 100 Megabytes a second (MB/s) enterprise-class
hard disks. Write performance for a Spansion EcoRAM system compares to
high-speed enterprise-class hard disks which are in the hundreds of MB/s.

About Spansion
Spansion (Nasdaq: SPSN - News) is a leading Flash memory solutions provider,
dedicated to enabling, storing and protecting digital content in wireless,
automotive, networking and consumer electronics applications. Spansion,
previously a joint venture of AMD and Fujitsu, is the largest company in the
world dedicated exclusively to designing, developing, manufacturing,
marketing, selling and licensing Flash memory solutions. For more information,
visit http://www.spansion.com.

NOTE: Spansion(R), the Spansion Logo, EcoRAM(TM), , and combinations thereof,
are trademarks of Spansion LLC in the US and other countries. Other names used
are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective
owners.

SOURCE Spansion Inc.

Courtney Brigham of Spansion, +1-408-616-5056