Exar Corporation Closes Galazar Networks Acquisition

FREMONT, CA - Exar Corporation (NASDAQ: EXAR) announced today the completion of the acquisition of Galazar Networks® Inc., a fabless semiconductor company based in Ottawa, Canada. Galazar Networks has a broad set of silicon and software products targeting the rapidly emerging packet-based telecom infrastructure. They offer a variety of solutions for transporting Ethernet and TDM traffic over SONET/SDH, PDH, and OTN networks. Galazar Networks will be a whollyowned subsidiary of Exar.

“Extending Exar’s technology portfolio to address both TDM and carrier Ethernet infrastructure is critical to meeting our customer’s needs for next generation architectures,” said Pete Rodriguez, Exar’s president and chief executive officer. “The combination of these products with the high performance security and compression technologies offered through Exar’s recent acquisition of Hifn provides a comprehensive set of solutions for the next wave of telecommunications networks.”

About Exar
Exar Corporation delivers highly differentiated silicon, software and subsystem solutions for industrial, datacom and storage applications. For nearly 40 years, Exar’s comprehensive knowledge of end-user markets along with the underlying analog, mixed signal and digital technology has enabled innovative solutions that meet the needs of the evolving connected world. Exar’s product portfolio includes power management and interface components, communications products, storage optimization solutions, network security and applied service processors. Exar has locations worldwide providing real-time customer support to drive rapid product development. For more information about Exar, visit: http://www.exar.com.

About Galazar Networks Inc.
Galazar Networks Inc. is a leading semiconductor vendor focused on Ethernet, DS1/E1, DS3/E3 and SONET/SDH/OTN solutions for carrier grade Ethernet and Multi-Service line cards. Our products support OTN, SONET/SDH, PDH (DS3/E3, DS1/E1), data (Ethernet, packet, private line), SAN services (Fibre Channel, FICON, ESCON, Gigabit Ethernet, 10 Gigabit Ethernet) and video services (DVB-ASI, SD-SDI, HDSDI, 3G-SDI). Galazar is a technology leader in Generic Framing Protocol (GFP), Virtual Concatenation (VCAT) of both High and Low Order paths, and Link Capacity Adjustment Scheme (LCAS). Galazar’s products are designed to be ideal for Ethernet, SAN and Multi-Service CPE/CLE platforms as well as EoS, PoS, EoPDH, EoX and SAN line cards for ADMs, muxponder cards for ROADMs, routers, MSTPs, DSLAMs, wireless cellular backhaul, media converters and metro core switches. For more information, visit www.galazar.com.

Safe Harbor Statement
The Company's statements about its future financial performance, product development initiatives, and market trends, are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties include global financial volatility, economic recession, and industry and market conditions, such as customer and distributor relationships, including competitive factors, such as pricing or competing solutions; customer ordering patterns; accounting considerations related to impairment analyses or acquisition related issues; and the Company's successful execution of internal performance plans, as well as the other risks detailed from time to time in the Company's SEC reports, including the Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended March 30, 2008 and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the periods ended June 29, 2008, September 28, 2008 and December 28, 2008.

Press Contacts for Exar Corporation:

J. Scott Kamsler, Senior VP, CFO

Thomas R. Melendrez, Executive Vice President | (510) 668 7000