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LIVINGSTON, Scotland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 29, 2001--The Virtual Component Exchange (VCX) and Simutech have today announced a business relationship through which their tools and services have been integrated to deliver a complete IP Supply Chain solution for Searching, Evaluating, Licensing and Integrating IP. This non-exclusive agreement will enable each party to reference each other's services and offer their respective customers a more complete offering. This announcement coincides with the launch of their joint European Road show Seminars - 'Taming the IP Supply-Chain'. The seminars will present to the SoC design community an integrated solution of standards, services and tools such that a coherent and effective on-line IP supply-chain can be created for both buyers and sellers of IP.

Clare Hirst, Analyst, DataQuest will 'kick-off' the Seminar Series, August 29, at the Alba Centre with a keynote Speech addressing 'The Development of the IP Marketplace and Business Model'. Hirst will explore: Current Market Trends, Future Forecasting, Positioning of Industry Players and the Necessary Tools required to enter into the marketplace.

``Dataquest is currently investigating IP acquisition methods and there is no doubt that both buyers and sellers incur significant time and engineering costs in this unstructured process,'' stated Clare Hirst. ``A standardized and unified approach to the business and technical challenges, such as that delivered by Simutech and VCX could greatly improve the transaction efficiencies between IP buyers and sellers and enable the market to broaden as predicted.'' Taming the IP Supply Chain IP reuse, integration, evaluation and verification are a necessary part of today's development cycle: the ability to source, evaluate, license and integrate IP into the design cycle can increase functionality, cost and time-to-market demands. Further, it is necessary to provide an environment within which IP buyers can specify their business, technical and methodology requirements for acquisition and where IP sellers can demonstrate their ability to match those requirements.

``Considerable efforts have been made towards meeting the technical challenges presented by the SoC integration process,'' commented Andy Travers, CEO of the Virtual Component Exchange. ``Yet, this alone has not ensured the ability, nor business rationale for repeated use of internal or external IP across business units. For IP exchange and use to happen the industry must align to form a common platform of standards and expectations between buyers and sellers.''

``Simutech and VCX have studied the success of on-line supply chains in the merchant IC market and concluded that a customized version of this in the IP domain is what is needed to dramatically improve the efficiency of the buyer - seller interface'', commented David Stewart, VP EU Sales. ``Selecting the right IP is critical to product success these days. End users should now be able take full advantage of our joint offering to standardize their methods for such decision making.''

Symposium Information

VCX and Simutech will be holding free, half-day symposiums at several major European locations throughout September at which a solution addressing the issues surrounding the entire IP Supply chain and SoC design process will be unveiled. The symposiums are open to anyone involved in the IP business or SoC development process interested in establishing an effective IP reuse and integration development environment. Additional information on the symposiums is available at http://www.thevcx.com and http://www.simutech.com.

Symposium Dates and Locations

            DATE                                  CITY
    Wednesday, 29 August                   Livingston, Scotland
    Monday, 3 September                    Stockholm, Sweden
    Tuesday, 4 September                   Helsinki, Finland
    Wednesday, 5 September                 Eindhoven, Netherlands
    Thursday, 6 September                  Brussels, Belgium
    Friday, 7 September                    Paris, France
    Monday, 17 September                   Bristol, England
    Wednesday, 19 September                Bracknell, England
    Friday, 21 September                   Munich, Germany

About VCX

The Virtual Component Exchange is a unique Business-to-Business (B2B) software and E-commerce organization focused on producing Internet tools for trading Intellectual Property. It has already delivered the first regulated exchange for trading Semiconductor Intellectual Property (SIP): the VCX TradeFloor. Powered by VCX TransactionWare(TM), the TradeFloor tools link the Engineering, Procurement and Legal functions of both Buyers and Sellers with a common toolset and language. Alignment of data evaluation, access and contracting protocols between Buyers and Sellers, using industry standards, dramatically accelerates the speed of SIP transactions, fulfilling the common business imperative of getting more products to market in shorter time cycles. Distributed Internet access to the VCX TradeFloor is provided through the VCX Gateway - distributing VC data and transaction agents to the web-based market, extending the reach and value for Buyers and Sellers alike. To find out more about the VCX TradeFloor, accessing the VCX market channel, or simply to browse the VCX Public Listing, visit the web site at http://www.thevcx.com or contact info@thevcx.com.

About Simutech

Simutech provides cost-effective, high-performance evaluation and verification solutions for those involved in designing, marketing, and selling SoCs or platform-based designs and their components (IP, IC and embedded SW). For more information, please visit http://www.simutech.com.

     Virtual Component Exchange, Livingston, Scotland
     Jane Steel, +44 1506-404-100
     Jane Steel@thevcx.com
     or
     Publitek
     Leslie Cumming, +1 503/274-2604
     leslie_cumming@msn.com