Verplex Selected by Hitachi as Its Worldwide Formal Verification Solution Provider

Conformal Logic Equivalence Checker Will Be Integrated into Hitachi's SOCplanner

MILPITAS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 6, 2002--Verplex(TM) Systems, Inc., today announced Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT - news) has signed a purchase agreement for multiple licenses of its Conformal(TM) Logic Equivalence Checker (LEC). Additionally, Conformal LEC will be integrated into SOCplanner, Hitachi's design environment and manufacturing solution for system LSI designs.

Hitachi manufactures and markets a wide range of semiconductor chips for digital consumer products, car information systems, networking and mobile products. The size and complexity of these chips mean that a much greater level of automation is required to verify the design.

Verplex currently supports the 73C (0.35 micron technology) and 76C (0.18 micron technology) series libraries from Hitachi.

"We have a plan to integrate Conformal LEC into SOCplanner, our design environment and manufacturing solution for system LSIs," says Yoshio Okamura, department manager, Design Technology Development Department, Design Technology Development Division, Semiconductor and Integrated Circuits, Hitachi, Ltd. "As the innovation in technology continues to rapidly advance, we must provide the best solutions that ensure good chips on time. Verplex tools help our engineers to quickly detect, locate, isolate, and understand the causes of the problem, which significantly contributes to our success in the marketplace."

"Hitachi customers need best-in-class tools to get their designs completed," states Tom Senna, vice president of Business Development and Marketing at Verplex. "We are proud to be such an integral part of Hitachi's mainstream design flow, knowing that they set such high standards in meeting customer requirements. We enthusiastically anticipate that our integration with SOCplanner will extend Hitachi's success with their customers even further."

Availability

For more information on Conformal LEC, contact Dino Caporossi, Verplex vice president of marketing, at (408) 586-0387 or via email at dino@verplex.com. More details about Verplex can be found at its Web Site: http://www.verplex.com.

About Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is one of the world's leading global electronics companies, with fiscal 2000 (ended March 31, 2001) consolidated sales of 8,417 billion yen ($67.9 billion(a)). The company manufactures and markets a wide range of products, including computers, semiconductors, consumer products and power and industrial equipment. For more information on Hitachi, Ltd., please visit Hitachi's Web site at http://global.hitachi.com

About Hitachi's SOCplanner

SOCplanner is Hitachi's total system LSI platform for flexible customer solutions with the following features: (1) system development environment, which realizes hardware-software concurrent development and validation environment introducing co-design and co-simulation, (2) LSI design environment with precise one-pass design flow halving design period, (3) silicon technology implementing high-speed, high-integration, and low-power consumption, and (4) Hitachi core competent SuperH(TM)/H8 cores, IPs, OSs, and middleware common to these.

About Verplex

Verplex Systems Inc. is an electronic design automation (EDA) company focused on delivering the highest speed, highest capacity and easiest to use formal verification products for complex system-on-chip (SOC) design. Founded in 1997, it is privately held and funded by leading venture capital firms. Corporate headquarters is located at 300 Montague Expressway, Suite 100, Milpitas, Calif. 95035. Telephone: (408) 586-0300. Facsimile: (408) 586-0230. Email: info@verplex.com. Online information is found at its web site: http://www.verplex.com.

Verplex, Conformal and BlackTie are trademarks of Verplex Systems Inc. All other companies and products referenced herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.