SAN JOSE, CA, January 31, 2006 - Bay Microsystems, the leader in high performance network processing solutions delivering high quality voice, video and data services, today announced that its President and Chief Executive Officer, Charles (Chuck) Gershman, has been named one of the five finalists for the 2006 EE Times Annual Creativity in Electronics (ACE) Awards, as the Executive of the Year.

The winner of this prestigious honor will be announced at the second ACE Awards gala on April 4 at the Fairmont Hotel San Jose during the Embedded Systems Conference Silicon Valley. ACE Awards finalists were picked out of a pool of more than 600 entries submitted for seven categories of awards.

A founder of the company, Chuck Gershman was named president and CEO of Bay Microsystems in 2002, just as the post-bubble worldwide telecom market downturn was in full swing. Since then he has successfully navigated the company, and its product and market strategies through extremely difficult times, during which more than 40 competitors exited the high-speed network processor industry. In 2005 Bay achieved more than 6x year-to-year growth in revenues, top market share for its leading product, its first acquisition, and multi-million dollar government contracts. Today Bay Microsystems is the only high-end network processing company to reach profitability.

"Chuck Gershman has demonstrated outstanding management skills in leading his young company through a very difficult era for all technology companies, particularly semiconductor firms, and bringing it to profitability last year," said Brian Fuller, editor in chief and publisher of EE Times. "Our Executive of the Year award recognizes visionary leaders in our industry and Chuck's tremendous results at Bay Microsystems make him a strong candidate for this award."

Bay Microsystems is a privately held communications technology company delivering programmable packet and transport processors, and network elements for the world's most demanding broadband networks. Bay's award winning Internetworking Processor™ products are scalable, intelligent, protocol-agile and ultra-high performance, and are used in U.S. Government and commercial networks to provide robust high quality end-user experiences. For more information please visit www.baymicrosystems.com.

The EE Times ACE Awards were created to recognize the people, companies and products that show leadership in the electronics industry and will honor those who are leading the way and making positive contributions -- the creators of technology. Awards will be presented at the second annual awards gala held on April 4, 2006 at the Fairmont Hotel San Jose during CMP Media's Embedded Systems Conference Silicon Valley, at the San Jose Convention Center. To purchase tickets and find out more about the event, visit www.eetimes.com/ace.

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Media Contact:
Tim Helms
Helms Communications
925-606-6936

Company Contact:
Bill Weisinger
Bay Microsystems
408-437-0400
Contact: Info at Bay