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SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 21, 2001-- Quickturn, a Cadence company (NYSE:CDN), today introduced the CoBALT Ultra(TM) Design Verification System, the highest-capacity verification system available today. Easily capable of handling designs of more than 100 million gates, CoBALT Ultra is the only system that delivers capacity and performance sufficient to verify the largest, most complex designs -- all in an integrated, single-chassis platform.

Quickturn(TM) also announced the first sale of CoBALT Ultra to Unisys, a leading e-business solutions company. Unisys chose CoBALT Ultra to help its designers develop the company's next generation of Cellular Multiprocessing (CMP) Servers.

``Quickturn's emulation products are an essential part of Unisys' verification environment,'' said Anthony Gold, vice president of CMP Server Development at Unisys. ``These systems have enabled our engineers, working on multiple projects in multiple locations, to submit and run their verification jobs quickly and easily. CoBALT Ultra will enable us to run many more of our larger tests -- and run them faster and earlier in our verification flow. As a result, we'll be able to develop and deliver more robust, higher quality designs for products that can be introduced to market sooner than we have ever done before.''

CoBALT Ultra's ability to compile and debug designs rapidly makes it ideally suited for the largest verification tasks, such as validating complex system-on-chips (SoCs), microprocessors, and complete chip sets. With CoBALT Ultra's fast compile rates and full debug capability even designers of the largest application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) can now rapidly debug their designs.

``CoBALT Ultra is the first and only verification solution that delivers the highest productivity even when debugging designs larger than 20 million gates,'' said Christopher J. Tice, Cadence® senior vice president and Quickturn general manager. ``This level of productivity is critical when verifying large designs and entire systems, especially in conjunction with system-level software development.''

``The strategic move from verification of an individual chip to verification of a complete system in a real-world environment -- including entire chip sets, system RAM, physical I/O, and embedded and system-level software -- becomes essential as design sizes escalate beyond 20 million gates, and it is critical for hardware/software co-verification,'' Tice said. ``This overall verification strategy dramatically reduces schedule times and increases quality. For the largest designs, this performance can be achieved with CoBALT Ultra.''

Tice commended Unisys as ``an excellent example of a forward-thinking company. As the first customer of our new CoBALT Ultra, Unisys clearly recognized the need to maintain its market leadership. This adoption of leading-edge technology is a key investment that will promote the prompt delivery of complex products of the highest quality.''

CoBALT Ultra is also available through the QuickStart program, which offers emulation users the opportunity to trade in their existing emulators for credit toward an upgrade to a high-performance Quickturn verification system. The QuickStart program includes a complete package of consulting assistance for first-time users of Quickturn systems. This CoBALT Ultra upgrade offer ends Oct. 31.

Quickturn's Seventh-Generation Technology

CoBALT Ultra is the newest member of the Quickturn CoBALT (Concurrent Broadcast Array Logic Technology) family, providing dramatic functionality improvements over its high-performance predecessor, CoBALTPlus(TM). CoBALT Ultra utilizes a massive array of newly designed, custom emulation ASICs, providing more than five times the capacity and double the run-time performance of CoBALTPlus. CoBALT Ultra is also compatible with Quickturn's line of application solutions, which provide pre-configured, complete verification environments tailored for specific applications, including computing, multimedia, wireless, and networking applications. These solutions slash months from chip and system verification.

Key Features and Benefits of CoBALT Ultra

• Fast Compilation -- Fast compile performance translates to increased productivity and is a must-have feature when debugging designs greater than 10 million ASIC gates. CoBALT Ultra's high-speed compiler is designed to go from register-transfer level (RTL) to verification at a typical rate of four million ASIC gates per hour on a single workstation.
• Scalable Architecture -- CoBALT Ultra is scalable and expandable to support up to 112 million ASIC gates and 64 gigabytes of RAM. Within these parameters, CoBALT Ultra architecture delivers constant in-circuit performance as designs grow and expand across multiple system boards delivering the same high productivity.
• Custom Chip Technology -- CoBALT Ultra achieves its standard-setting performance by combining Quickturn's advanced compiler technology with new custom emulation ASICs fabricated on state-of-the-art, 0.12-micron, seven-layer copper process technology. By utilizing custom emulation chip technology, CoBALT Ultra dramatically reduces compile time, and increases chip utilization and performance over prior generations of industry solutions.
• Multi-User Capability -- CoBALT Ultra supports up to 32 simultaneous users running any combination of co-simulation and in-circuit emulation. This capability enables multiple design teams to simultaneously verify different phases of a project -- or different projects altogether -- with a single verification tool. The result is greater productivity and a greater return on investment.
• Easy-to-use Software Environment -- CoBALT Ultra retains the successful Quest-II(TM), PowerSuite(TM), and HDL-ICE(TM) software environments that are available today on CoBALT(Plus). This powerful suite of applications provides a proven environment for RTL verification from simulation to simulation acceleration and in-circuit emulation.
• Complete Solutions for Vertical Applications -- With the addition of a Quickturn SpeedBridge(TM) custom environment, design teams can optimize CoBALT Ultra for multimedia, wireless, networking, and computer designs. SpeedBridge products enable engineers to analyze circuit behavior and debug designs in a real-world environment, shaving months from product design cycles.

Pricing and Product Availability

The Quickturn CoBALT Ultra design verification system is priced depending on user configuration. Quickturn will ship CoBALT Ultra worldwide in fourth quarter 2001. CoBALT Ultra will also be available through QuickCycles(TM), a turnkey program that provides flexible access to Quickturn verification environments on a per-project basis, and the QuickStart program. For additional information, visit the Quickturn website at http://www.quickturn.com or contact a local Quickturn sales office. In North America, call 408/914-6000; for a local office outside of North America, visit www.quickturn.com/about/location.htm.

About Quickturn

Quickturn, a Cadence company, is the leading provider of high-performance verification solutions and Time-to-Market Engineering (TtME®) services for the design and verification of complex IC and electronic systems. Developers of high-performance computing, multimedia, graphics, and communications systems use Quickturn products and services. For more information, visit the Quickturn Web site at www.quickturn.com, call 408/914-6000, or send email to info@quickturn.com.

About Cadence

Cadence is the largest supplier of electronic design automation products, methodology services, and design services used to accelerate and manage the design of semiconductors, computer systems, networking and telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics, and a variety of other electronics-based products. With approximately 5,700 employees and 2000 revenues of approximately $1.3 billion, Cadence has sales offices, design centers, and research facilities around the world. The company is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., and traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CDN. More information about the company, its products, and services is available at www.cadence.com.

About Unisys

Unisys (NYSE:UIS) is more than 37,000 employees helping customers in 100 countries apply information technology to solve their business problems. Unisys solutions are based on a broad portfolio of global information services including systems integration, outsourcing, ``repeatable'' application solutions, consulting, network integration, remote network management, and multi-vendor maintenance and support, coupled with enterprise-class servers and associated middleware, software and storage. Repeatable solutions are focused on key vertical markets including financial services, transportation, telecommunications, government, publishing and other commercial markets. Headquartered in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, in the Greater Philadelphia area, Unisys had 2000 pro-forma annual revenue of over $6 billion. Access the Unisys home page on the World Wide Web http://www.unisys.com for further information.

Note to Editors: Cadence, the Cadence logo and TtME are registered trademarks and Quickturn, CoBALT Ultra, CoBALT(Plus), Quest II Environment, QuickCycles, and SpeedBridge are trademarks of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

     Quickturn, A Cadence Company
     Kristin Boucher, 408/914-6635
     kristin@quickturn.com
            or
     Armstrong Kendall, Inc.
     Bill Toelke, 503/672-4692
     bill@akipr.com