PRESS RELEASE

AEI announces acquisition of intellectual property from SonicWALL, Inc., and introduction of PCI Ethernet Adapter series.

Attn: Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

Temecula, California - June 22, 2001 - Effective March 1st, 2001, AEI (a division of Ace Electronics Inc.) entered into a Licensing and Purchase Agreement with SonicWALL, Inc. (NASDAQ: SNWL) to acquire intellectual property of SonicWALL (previously Phobos Corporation, Utah) that includes the Phobos Quad Fast Ethernet Adapter (p/n: P430), the Phobos Single Channel 100Mbps Fiber Optic Ethernet Adapter 
(p/n: P100SC), PhobosLink port aggregation software, and derivative works thereof.

AEI is positioning itself to be the leading designer and manufacturer of low cost, high availability, fault tolerant network interface cards (NICs) supporting both Microsoft Windows and UNIX-based operating environments.

All NIC cards are designed around the IEEE 802.3 / 802.3u specification, and utilizes the DEC 21143 chip set. The Ethernet Adapters are easily integrated into x86-, Alpha-, or SPARC-based platforms, and are warranted for a period of three years. The adapter boards also come with a Driver Suite that includes support for popular operating systems including Windows 95/98/2000/ME/NT, Solaris, Linux, FreeBSD, and others. Furthermore, the Linux driver is a partial open source binary driver that "makes" and compiles to any Linux kernel, and therefore supports all Linux distributions and kernels.

Features also include PhobosLink Software provided at no additional cost, and included with each AEI Ethernet Adapter. This software offers optional functionality for load balancing, port aggregation, and failover for up to 32 10/100 channels (or four (4) Phobos Gigabit NICs - p/n: P1000SX). With PhobosLink, two or more channels may be aggregated, or trunked, to increase network bandwidth to rates up to and exceeding Gigabit speeds. When done so, network traffic is balanced across all trunked ports and/or NIC cards. If one or more trunked ports fail, network traffic is immediately routed to the available ports, thereby offering a fault tolerant solution for mission critical applications and server environments. The PhobosLink port aggregation software supports all industry standard trunking algorithms, including SunTrunking and Cisco's Fast EtherChannel.

Beginning October 2001, PhobosLink Express will be available. PhobosLink Express is the famous PhobosLink Software providing trunking and failover for ANY network interface card. PhobosLink Express will list at $595, well below the price of other trunking alternatives.

"AEI offers OEMs and system integrators unparalleled support and flexibility in both its current product line, and future product offerings", said Jim Strachan, President/CEO AEI. "Given the state of our economy and especially in today's competitive business environment, system integrators require high end, yet cost effective solutions for their server platforms. Our Ethernet adapters are designed specifically with that in mind."

Said Randy Silks, Chief Technology Officer of AEI, "AEI's line of quality manufactured Fast Ethernet cards are in league with some of the finest. When you look at the clean component layout and the other outstanding physical attributes of the P430 you realize that you are looking at a very high quality product. Not only is the complete product line made well, but the in-circuit noise threshold is the lowest I have seen. Noise bypassing has eliminated circuit cross talk, a must for today's high-speed environments. The on-board power filtering is superb. These features create a higher degree of reliability. The customer's demand for high density, high quality, low cost connectivity makes the AEI's Ethernet adapters the best value found in the marketplace today."

PRICING AND AVAILABILITY:

* Currently available is the P430TX ("Quad Fast Ethernet Adapter") - list price of $495.

* Currently available is the P100SC ("Single Channel Fiber Optic Ethernet Adapter") - list price of $345.

Plans are currently in progress to develop several variants of the P430TX including:

* A PCI 1-port low profile form factor Ethernet Adapter. Will fit 1U server sizes and up. Expected to be available July 2001 - List price of $99 (p/n: P130);

* A PCI 2-port low profile form factor Ethernet Adapter. Will fit 1U server sizes and up. Expected to be available end of August 2001 - List Price of $295 (p/n: P230);

ABOUT AEI:

AEI is a division of Ace Electronics Inc, which commenced operations March 2001. Ace Electronics Inc. has been in business since 1998.

Ace Electronics Inc. is privately held, with corporate headquarters at 41743 Enterprise Circle North, Suite 108, Temecula, CA 92590 (USA). The Company has its research and development, and sales offices located at this facility.

Contact AEI at 909/296-2022 or www.aei-it.com  

Note to Editors:

All brands are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Specifications may change without notice. Monetary amounts are stated in U.S. dollars.

CONTACT:

Jim Strachan - 909/296-2022
AEI