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TOKYO and SANTA CLARA, Calif., Oct. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- NEC Corporation (Nasdaq: NIPNY; FTSE: 6701q.l; TSE: 6701) (NEC) and NEC Electronics Inc., its wholly owned subsidiary in the U.S., today announced that NEC has licensed its V850E(TM) 32-bit RISC microprocessor core to Synopsys Inc. (Nasdaq: SNPS), a leading provider of electronic design automation (EDA) tools. The V850E CPU core will be incorporated into Synopsys' popular DesignWare® IP library, allowing over 25,000 registered DesignWare LSI engineers to evaluate and design new system-on-a-chip (SOC) products powered by the V850E CPU core.

``NEC aims to increase the adoption of the V850E core by making it accessible to the large number of LSI designers currently using the DesignWare IP library,'' said Shinichi Iwamoto, senior manager of the Microcomputer Division at NEC Corporation. ``Providing a reusable microprocessor core through Synopsys' program will enable designers to easily develop a range of SOC solutions for various target applications and quickly bring these products to market.''

The V850E core will have an ARM® AMBA(TM) advanced high-performance bus (AHB) interface for compatibility with DesignWare's on-chip bus solution and other AMBA-based DesignWare IP. The CPU core will provide designers with plug-and-play reusability for new SOC designs and will conform to the strict design reuse coding guidelines and methodology defined by the Reuse Methodology Manual (RMM) co-authored by Synopsys. Additionally, DesignWare's bundled V850E simulation and timing models will be available to DesignWare customers at no additional charge. Synopsys is planning to release the V850E IP core for DesignWare in the fourth quarter of year 2002.

About NEC's V850E Macro Cores

NEC's cores based on the V850(TM) architecture provide configurable CPU macros for use in a wide variety of system-on-a-chip solutions. These highly flexible cores enable designers to choose from a variety of memory and cache implementations, standard peripherals, memory interfaces, interrupt controllers and on-chip debugging capabilities.

The V850E microprocessor is widely used in a range of applications including mobile communications, magnetic disk drives and automotive electronics.

About the Synopsys DesignWare IP Library

DesignWare is the world's leading IP library, in use by over 25,000 designers. It provides designers with implementation IP consisting of more than 140 technology-independent components that range in complexity from arithmetic components, memory devices and JTAG functions to complex IP cores such as USB 2.0, PCI-X, PCI and 8051. DesignWare also includes verification IP consisting of bus-functional models (e.g., microprocessors), bus interface models (e.g., PCI-X, USB 2.0 and Ethernet) and more than 18,500 other verification models such as SSIs, memory devices, peripherals, FPGAs, microprocessors and microcontrollers. In addition, DesignWare provides access to microprocessor cores from leading Star IP vendors. DesignWare also includes the MemPro(TM) memory model generation tool from Synopsys®.

About NEC Corporation

NEC Corp. is a leading provider of Internet solutions, dedicated to meeting the specialized needs of its customers in the key computer, network and electron device fields through its three market-focused in-house companies: NEC Solutions, NEC Networks and NEC Electron Devices. NEC Corporation, with its in-house companies, employs more than 150,000 people worldwide and saw net sales of 5,409 billion Yen (approx. US$43 billion) in fiscal year 2000-2001. For further information, please visit the NEC home page at http://www.nec.com .

About NEC Electronics Inc.

NEC Electronics Inc., headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., is one of the leading developers, manufacturers and suppliers of semiconductor products in the United States. Committed to meeting customers' cost, performance and time-to-market requirements, the company offers solutions ranging from standard products, including electron components, to system-on-a-chip (SOC) solutions, as well as customized products for next-generation designs. NEC Electronics also offers customers the benefits of a local manufacturing facility in Roseville, Calif., and the global manufacturing capabilities of its parent company, NEC Corporation. For more information about products offered by NEC Electronics Inc., please visit the NEC Electronics web site at http://www.necel.com .

NOTE: Synopsys and DesignWare are registered trademarks of Synopsys, Inc. V850 and V850E are trademarks or registered trademarks of NEC Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks or registered trademarks mentioned in this release are the intellectual property of their respective owners.