Sensor Platforms, Inc. Announces Launch

Dwight, Hsu, and Traversi team up to address major sensor market need

SANTA ROSA, CA, August 23, 2004 - Sensor Platforms, Inc., a Santa Rosa, CA-based designer, developer, and producer of integrated circuits serving the sensor industry, today announced its formation and the closing of a $1.33 million initial round of equity financing that was led by members of the North Bay Angels, a Healdsburg-based group focused on early-stage investment opportunities.

Sensor Platforms is dedicated to being the world’s leading enabler of sensor applications, providing low cost, high performance, “system-on-a-chip” integrated circuits (“ICs”) that:

• Directly interface with most sensor elements;
• Eliminate the cost, time, and risk associated
  with development of the sensor interfaces;
• Dramatically decrease unit costs of sensor
  application solutions; and
• Enhance sensor performance

Sensor Platforms’ proprietary Universal Smart Sensor Chip™, currently in development, will be the only IC that can directly interface with and drive most types of sensor elements, including pulse, voltage, current, inductive, capacitive, and resistive - providing the lowest cost and highest performance available for a sensor solution.

The company's technology was developed over the past two years by a development team led by George Hsu, the former Chief Executive Officer of PNI Corp. Mr. Hsu founded PNI in the late 1980's as a vehicle to commercialize his invention of the digital magnetic compass, of which tens of millions are now produced annually. While at PNI, which also produces a number of other sensor-based products, Mr. Hsu identified an acute need for a low cost, “off-the-shelf” IC to accelerate the time-to-market in, and lower the cost of, developing sensor-based applications. The Sensor Platforms' solution directly addresses this need.

Mr. Hsu, who will serve as President and Chief Executive Officer of Sensor Platforms, stated, "To date, the development of any sensor application has required the costly and time-intensive development of customized processing circuitry, firmware, and the algorithms unique to that application, as well as the control system, calibration software, and the equipment to facilitate the sensor application's successful mass production. The lack of a standard sensor application development environment and processing circuitry has significantly restrained growth in the sensor industry. Sensor Platforms' products directly address this need."

David Traversi will serve as Chairman of the company, and will play an active role in the company's management. Mr. Traversi is Managing Director of 2020 Growth Partners, LLC, a strategic advisory firm based in Santa Rosa. He was formerly a General Partner of Montgomery Securities, President of Sirrom Capital Corporation (a Nashville-based, publicly-traded company that was sold in 1999), and Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of PRE Solutions, Inc., a venture-backed company based in Atlanta that is now the world's leading electronic processor of prepaid products.

Mr. Traversi noted, "The global market for sensor elements alone is projected to reach over $50 billion by 2008, and the electronics necessary to run these elements is at least as large. Thousands of new sensor applications are deployed each year that require, for each new application, the development and production of processing circuitry, calibration technology, and all the software needed to make it work. We believe our platform can significantly reduce the development time and cost of these new sensor applications, by as much as 10 times. These savings and efficiencies will play a key role in the development of new sensor applications and will help the overall sensor market achieve the growth that it's certainly capable of."

Most of Sensor Platforms’ investors are members of the North Bay Angels. Founded in 1998 by Steve Weiss, Harold Robinson, Dieter Thurow, and John Mackie, the organization is a group of individual investors who have banded together to evaluate and potentially fund and mentor local startups. The Sensor Platforms investment was coordinated by Herb Dwight, formerly the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Optical Coating Laboratory, Inc., which was acquired by JDS Uniphase Corporation, and Superconductor Technologies, Inc. He was also a Founder and the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Spectra-Physics. He currently serves on the boards of a number of private and public companies, including Iolon, OnWafer, and Applied Materials. Mr. Dwight will serve as a board member of Sensor Platforms.

Sensor Platforms is located at 1550 Airport Blvd., Suite 220, Santa Rosa, CA 95403. The website is located at: www.sensorplatforms.com.

EDITORS NOTE: Please refer to the Sensor Platforms’ website www.sensorplatforms.com or more information.