For more information contact:

Trent Poltronetti
Synchronicity Inc.
(408) 817-9600 x232
trent@synchronicity.com

Karen Tyrrell
VitalCom PR
(650) 637-8212
karen@vitalcompr.com

SAN JOSE, CA, - December 11, 2000 - Synchronicity, Inc. today introduced a new version of their flagship internet-based design management and collaboration tool, DesignSync. Among a range of enhancements, DesignSync v3.0 increases operational speed and adds significant new branch and merge functionality to support parallel development.

Parallel development is widely used by software engineers to enhance productivity. Synchronicity now offers similar productivity improvements to hardware engineers, but more importantly, offers a unified solution for the collaboration and management of system-level-design. Philips Semiconductors, a leader in system-level design, helped to specify the new parallel development functionality and is among the first to adopt this new feature. In parallel development, a design is partitioned into pieces that can be worked on concurrently to increase productivity. Branching and merging are the primary requirements enabling this. Branching is where a new line of development is separated off of a base line. Branches may be long-lived for different members of a product family, or short lived to test a speed enhancement. The work on a branch can then be merged into another branch or simply discarded.

Parallel development increases design flexibility and helps teams release higher quality products sooner. Software engineers embraced parallel development techniques over the last decade and now Synchronicity is the first to offer a solution for hardware engineers with the sophistication programmers have come to expect.

"Philips Semiconductors is already using Synchronicity's DesignSync and ProjectSync products widely to manage our hardware design flow. The ever-increasing complexity with mixed hardware development languages, such as VHDL, Verilog, C and C++, meant we required additional features to optimize for language level design. With DesignSync 3.0, Synchronicity brings sophisticated software-style development management techniques, such as Branch and Merge, to IC design. Their software now not only manages the whole system design across multiple sites but enables the concurrent development we need to meet aggressive consumer product lifecycles." commented Lambert van den Hoven, vice president and general manager, Design Technology Group, Philips Semiconductors B.V.

"Synchronicity now offers the first off-the-shelf, unified solution to effectively manage software and hardware development," said Dennis Harmon, Synchronicity CEO. "To ensure we effectively enable parallel development, we worked closely with customers who had the most demanding system-level-design requirements, especially Philips Semiconductors, and really appreciate their input. Those customers connecting hundreds of engineers across many sites will also notice significant speed gains and benefit from many other enhancements in DesignSync 3.0."

Pricing and Availability
DesignSync v3.0 is available now and pricing starts at $3,000 per user. DesignSync runs on Solaris, HP-UX, Windows 9x and Windows NT.

About Synchronicity
Synchronicity supplies Internet-based collaboration solutions to manage the supply chain feeding the development of complex electronic products. Synchronicity's enterprise applications, DesignSync and ProjectSync, enhance design productivity by enabling effective data management, parallel development techniques and proactive team communication within the design team, across the enterprise and between businesses. Synchronicity's IP Gear family of application servers enables organizations to create centralized resource web sites that enhance visibility, support complex decision processes, and manage the relationships and communication between the members of the development supply chain. Headquartered in Marlboro, MA, (508) 485-4122, Synchronicity has offices worldwide, please see www.synchronicity.com.

The Synchronicity logo, DesignSync and ProjectSync are registered trademarks and IP Gear is a trademark of Synchronicity, Inc. of Marlboro, MA. All other trademarks are the property of their owners. Pricing and configuration subject to change.