New Strategic Relationships Enhance Synplicity's ASIC Synthesis Offering
Fujitsu and Chip Express Support the Synplify ASIC Product
Development Relationships with LogicVision and Verplex Ease ASIC
Verification and Test Insertion
PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 4, 2002--Synplicity, Inc. (Nasdaq: SYNP - news), a leading supplier of software for the design and verification
of semiconductors, today announced it has formed new strategic
relationships with ASIC and EDA vendors to support its Synplify
ASIC(TM) product. With today's announcement, Fujitsu and Chip Express
are the newest ASIC vendors to support the Synplify ASIC software. The
companies will work with Synplicity to integrate the software into
their ASIC design flows. Synplicity also announced it has established
an optimized flow between the Synplify ASIC software and verification
and test insertion products from Verplex and LogicVision (Nasdaq: LGVN - news). Also today, Synplicity announced the availability of the
"Express Evaluation" kit for the Synplify ASIC software which reduces
the amount of time needed to conduct a hands-on evaluation of the
tool.
"Over the past 10 months, we have found many partners in the
semiconductor and design automation industry who share our goal of
improving designer productivity," said Andy Haines, vice president of
marketing at Synplicity. "As a testament to the growing popularity of
our approach, both Fujitsu and Chip Express have committed design flow
support based on requests from their customers who have used the
Synplify ASIC software to achieve excellent results. Likewise, we are
pleased to team with LogicVision and Verplex to improve
interoperability between our respective products. Our new
relationships with these leading ASIC and EDA vendors should enhance
the capabilities of our Synplify ASIC software and reinforce our
commitment to enabling a high productivity ASIC design flow."
ASIC Vendor Support for the Synplify ASIC Software
Fujitsu and Chip Express are the newest ASIC vendors to support
the Synplify ASIC product. Other ASIC vendors who have endorsed the
Synplify ASIC synthesis software to date include AMI Semiconductor,
Lightspeed Semiconductor and Oki Semiconductor.
"Fujitsu is dedicated to improving design productivity for our
customers, and based on customer requests we have started working with
Synplicity to support the Synplify ASIC tool," said Yoji Hino, general
manager, ASIC, Fujitsu Limited. "We look forward to integrating the
Synplify ASIC software into our design flow over the next several
months."
Doug Bailey, vice president of marketing at Chip Express, added,
"We've found the Synplify ASIC software to be very easy to learn and
use, and we have been impressed with the quality of results and
runtimes we've seen from the software. We can recommend Synplicity's
Synplify ASIC product to our customers."
Design Flow Optimizations
Verifying design functionality and incorporating structural test
are both critical tasks that must be completed before tape-out of
today's highly complex ASIC designs. Through joint development efforts
with Verplex and LogicVision, Synplicity intends to facilitate a
smooth design flow from synthesis to formal verification and test
insertion.
Verplex and Synplicity have worked closely to improve
interoperability between their respective formal verification and
synthesis tools. Through joint engineering efforts, the companies have
established an optimized design flow between the Synplify ASIC
software and Conformal Logic Equivalence Checker (LEC), providing
designers with a fast, highly integrated solution for verifying
designs created by Synplicity's software. According to Haines,
Synplicity recommends Verplex's Conformal Logic Equivalence Checker to
customers who need to verify designs created by Synplicity®
synthesis products.
"We share Synplicity's goal of improving design productivity and
are pleased to partner to create a highly integrated design flow that
addresses the needs of our mutual customers," said Tom Senna, vice
president of marketing and business development at Verplex. "Working
with Synplicity, we believe we have established a smooth process for
designers to verify design functionality and performance."
For the multi-million gate designs that have become commonplace
today, much of the tester functionality must be incorporated into the
chip to deliver a cost-effective test solution. Synplicity is working
with LogicVision to develop a flow that allows Synplicity's customers
to correctly implement LogicVision's embedded microtesters into their
designs using the Synplify ASIC design environment.
Steve Baird, LogicVision's director of business development, said,
"We are collaborating with Synplicity to establish a compatible flow
between our products. I believe our joint development efforts will
enable our customers to significantly reduce time to market and design
costs."
Express Evaluation Kit Improves Productivity
Performing a design tool evaluation can be a time consuming
process, often taking months of training and practice with a tool
before determining its appropriateness for meeting design goals.
Synplicity's new Synplify ASIC "Express Evaluation" toolkit enables a
designer to complete a four-step evaluation, including installation
and training, within a day. The kit provides all of the basic
information needed to conduct a hands-on evaluation of the Synplify
ASIC software including: an evaluation copy of the software; a design
tutorial; a test case design; and all of the necessary design
libraries. The kit is available at http://www.synplicity.com.
Pricing and Availability
The Synplify ASIC software is available now for Linux (Red Hat
7.1), HP-UX 11.0, Sun Solaris 2.7/2.8 and Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000
operating systems. A perpetual license of the Synplify ASIC software
lists for $115,000 (U.S.). A one-year time-based license of the
Synplify ASIC software lists for $69,000 (U.S.).
About the Synplify ASIC Synthesis Solution
Introduced in June 2001, the Synplify ASIC software is the
industry's first timing-driven ASIC synthesis product optimized to
improve productivity for the majority of ASIC designers. Synplicity's
Synplify ASIC software leverages the company's proven synthesis
technology, delivers high quality of results and features order of
magnitude runtime improvements -- up to 15 times faster than
traditional synthesis products. This solution offers a unique
"top-down" design methodology that enables designers to perform
timing-driven synthesis on up to two-million-gate designs in a single
operation, supporting matching hierarchy and constraints in synthesis
and place-and-route steps.
About Synplicity
Synplicity, Inc. (Nasdaq: SYNP - news) is a leading provider of software
products that enable the rapid and effective design and verification
of semiconductors used in networking and communications, computer and
peripheral, consumer and military/aerospace electronics systems.
Recognizing the company's industry-leading position, Dataquest named
Synplicity as the #1 provider of PLD synthesis tools in 2000 with 45
percent market share. Synplicity leverages its innovative logic
synthesis, physical synthesis and verification software solutions to
improve performance and shorten development time for complex
programmable logic devices, application specific integrated circuits
(ASICs) and system-on-chip (SoC) integrated circuits. The company's
fast, easy-to-use products offer high quality of results, support
industry-standard design languages (VHDL and Verilog) and run on
popular platforms. As of December 31, 2001, Synplicity employed 266
people in its 20 facilities worldwide. Synplicity is headquartered in
Sunnyvale, Calif. For more information on Synplicity, visit
http://www.synplicity.com.
The specific features and functionality of any new products and
joint development effort with third-parties as described in this press
release remain at the sole discretion of Synplicity, Inc. and
Synplicity does not make any warranty as to when or if specific
features and functionalities of such new products or the success of
joint development efforts with third-parties will occur as described
in this press release.
Note to Editors: Synplicity is a registered trademark of
Synplicity, Inc. Synplify ASIC is a trademark of Synplicity, Inc. All
other names mentioned herein are the trademarks or registered
trademarks of their owners.
Contact:
Porter Novelli
Steve Gabriel, 408/369-1500 x27
steve.gabriel@porternovelli.com
or
Synplicity, Inc.
John Gallagher, 408/215-6000
johng@synplicity.com
