TOKYO, Japan - January 29, 2001 -CoWare, Inc. today announced that CoWare and Matsushita Corporate Semiconductor Development Division have signed a comprehensive, multi-year contract that provides Matsushita with the CoWare N2C design system as the development platform for system LSIs and software used in mobile communication products. Under the agreement, CoWare will provide training and system-level design methodology services, in addition to software product licenses. "We've been using CoWare N2C for over two years," stated Yuji Kakinuma, Director of the IT System LSI Development Center of Matsushita's Corporate Semiconductor Development Division. "We have found that CoWare N2C could dramatically reduce design time compared to our previous methods. We now need to proliferate this system-level design solution. Fast time-to-market is the key factor for success, and the development of highly-customizable platforms for the mobile communication market is the answer."

The CoWare N2C design system helps engineering teams take their initial design ideas from napkin-to-chip in half the time of previous design methods. The CoWare N2C design system helps engineering teams explore different architectures, analyze the best way to partition a design into hardware and software, perform hardware/software co-simulation, and refine the design to RTL and object code for implementation.

CoWare N2C provides methodologies and tools to develop 'flexible' platforms with multiple processors and buses that can easily be modified and extended to match specific customer or market requirements. "As the leading producer of cellular handsets in Japan, Matsushita is aggressively developing mobile communication systems," stated CoWare President and CEO Guido Arnout. "In the two years we've been working together, Matsushita has shown its dedication to providing its customers with industry-leading products. We are delighted that Matsushita has chosen CoWare N2C. By working closely with Matsushita, we will get valuable input and feedback from their system knowledge, experience with our tools, and technology requirements so we can make our CoWare N2C design methodology more powerful and sophisticated."

About Matsushita
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (NYSE: MC) is a worldwide leader in the development and manufacture of digital electronics for the home, office and in between. Based in Osaka, Japan, the company recorded consolidated sales of $68.9 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2000. For more information, visit http://www.panasonic.co.jp/global.

About CoWare
CoWare, Inc. was founded in 1996 to develop tools and methodologies that help engineering teams cut their system-on-a-chip design times in half. CoWare N2C( provides an efficient means to capture, analyze, and implement a system specification, with parallel development by hardware and software teams. In addition, CoWare N2C greatly enhances IP re-use and selection, further reducing design time. The CoWare N2C software is employed by major systems and semiconductor companies including Alcatel, Fujitsu, Matsushita, Mitsubishi, Motorola, NEC, Nokia, Sony and STMicroelectronics. CoWare is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif. USA. For more information, visit www.CoWare.com.

Contact:
Mindy Powers - CoWare, Inc.
408.845.7613 mindy@CoWare.com

Paula Jones - New Ideas in Communications
650.967.3711 paula@newiic.com

Kanami Yagi
Matsushita Elecric Industrial Co., Ltd.
81-6-6906-4851 semicon-press@mrg.csdd.mei.co.jp