Axis Systems Develops First and Only Language-Neutral Acceleration and Emulation Platform

New Versions of Xcite, Xtreme Enable Users to Simulate, Accelerate, and Emulate SoC Designs At the Register-Transfer Level Regardless of Language

SUNNYVALE, Calif. & PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 4, 2002-- Axis Systems Inc. today announced the first and only verification systems that enable users to accelerate and emulate system-on-chip designs at the register-transfer level in Verilog, VHDL or both.

Mike Tsai, Axis president and CEO, said, "Having a language-neutral solution is equally important to all of our customers, whether they work primarily in VHDL or primarily in Verilog. We are firmly committed to deliver the high-quality verification products our customers need in order to meet their design requirements and time-to-market demands."

The newest versions of Axis' Xcite(TM) and Xtreme(TM) verification systems support both languages with no restrictions between language boundaries. During simulation acceleration and emulation, customers can now arbitrarily mix VHDL and Verilog in the same design, and debug any signal within that design -- whether it's a VHDL or Verilog signal.

"Most system-on-chip designs are a combination of Verilog and VHDL -- not just one or the other," said Yukari Chin, Axis Systems director of marketing. "Axis' language-neutral solution gives customers the unprecedented ability to accelerate and emulate their mixed-language designs at the register-transfer level without having to first synthesize to gates."

Axis' Xcite and Xtreme are based on patented reconfigurable computing (RCC) technology. The RCC coprocessors can be easily configured to handle any language (such as Verilog and VHDL) at any abstraction level (gate, RTL, behavioral). The first versions of Xcite and Xtreme supported Verilog, and Axis has now added mixed VHDL and Verilog capabilities in response to customer demand.

RCC technology provides powerful debugging capabilities such as VCD-on-Demand and hot swapping, according to Chin. VCD-on-Demand saves the simulation history for an entire design, eliminating the need to re-simulate when a bug is found, which improves overall verification productivity. Hot swapping -- switching from software simulation to accelerated simulation and emulation -- gives designers the flexibility to debug their designs in a familiar software debugging environment while taking advantage of acceleration and emulation performance.

Price and Availability

The new language-neutral versions of Xcite and Xtreme will be available in the third quarter of 2002. Prices are $50,000 and $10,000 for an upgrade from existing Verilog to language-neutral.

About Axis Systems Inc.

Axis Systems Inc. offers high-performance verification platforms for the hardware and software development of complex electronic system and system-on-chip designs. Axis' products help customers increase confidence in new designs, improve overall verification productivity and shorten time to market. On a single platform and with one design database, patented RCC technology provides software simulation, accelerated simulation, system emulation and hardware/software co-verification. Customers include the world's leading networking and multimedia companies. Axis is headquartered at 209 Java Drive, Sunnyvale, CA 94089. To learn more about Axis, visit www.axiscorp.com.

Axis customers comment on Xtreme's mixed-language capability:

Fujitsu Ltd.

Fujitsu Ltd. Communication Circuit & Device Technology Division has used Xcite since 1999 and upgraded last year to Xtreme after seeing productivity soar.

"Axis' verification tools helped us shorten our typical verification cycle from nine months to six months, a huge time savings," said Seiji Miyoshi, director of design methodology for Fujitsu Ltd. communication circuit & device technology division. "We're pleased that we will soon be able to extend these advantages to our mixed-language designs."

Micronas

Dirk Wieberneit, Micronas vice president of product development, said his company chose Xtreme because it serves Micronas' needs for debugging and verifying their digital television systems.

"Xtreme gives us the flexibility we need to achieve an optimum cost/performance ratio from simulation acceleration to emulation," Wieberneit said, "and now we will have the added flexibility of debugging our VHDL designs in RTL, giving us additional productivity gains."

Philips Semiconductors

For Philips Semiconductors, the key was speed. Steffen Muller, manager of the Silicon Integration Center for Philips Semiconductors (Hamburg, Germany), said verification of a new version of Philips' FALCONIC Motion Estimator for high-end televisions was cut in half, thanks to Xcite.

"Xcite helped us achieve first-pass silicon success," Muller said. "With the addition of VHDL capabilities, we can take advantage of the verification performance earlier in the design cycle."

ST Microelectronics

"We've previously used separate tools for simulation, acceleration and emulation. After testing Xtreme, what impressed us most was that a single Axis system can perform acceleration, emulation, and prototyping in the same design environment," said Jean-Marc Chateau, director of design at STMicroelectronics Consumer and Microcontroller Group.

"Xtreme is one of a kind -- we haven't seen anything else on the market that can perform similar capabilities. The new version of Xtreme, with its language-neutral capability, should cover our needs for system-on-chip verification worldwide. Working as a development partner with Axis gives us confidence that the new Xtreme will be able to improve time to market of our VHDL-based multimedia systems on a chip."

     Axis Systems Inc.
     Yukari Chin, 408/588-2000, ext. 154
     yukari@axiscorp.com
         or
     Cayenne Communication
     Lois DuBois, 650/854-5485
     lois.dubois@cayennecom.com