Synchronicity Launches IP Gear CAD HelpDesk with Philips Semiconductors as Lead Customer

SAN JOSE, Calif. - March 18, 2002 -Synchronicity Inc. today announced the IP Gear™ CAD HelpDesk is available to all customers after a successful deployment by a number of partnering customers, including Philips Semiconductors, a division of Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI). The CAD HelpDesk is used by central CAD organizations to support the tools, design blocks, libraries and methodologies those organizations make available to their engineers. The CAD HelpDesk is a new standalone application, derived from the HelpDesk in the IP Gear Publisher Suite design reuse and Intellectual Property (IP) distribution system.

With several thousand engineers spread across many sites in several time zones, Philips Semiconductors is representative of leading IC development organizations. Without an efficient management system in place, supporting a growing number of dispersed engineers was becoming increasingly difficult and costly. The CAD HelpDesk system in Philips Semiconductors now supports over 2000 engineers on more than 500 products and has brought them the support infrastructure and efficiency they needed.

Having a centralized support system adds efficiency to the support process in several ways. Analysts, working in distributed locations can access previously resolved issues and coordinate with each other to resolve current issues. Through this process a comprehensive knowledge base is developed, allowing many users to identify answers they need on their own. Dual communication channels enable the responsible analyst to communicate privately with the product developers and/or other analysts during issue resolution. A threaded dialogue and audit trail is maintained that captures key events and issue history. The CAD HelpDesk facilitates the optimal routing of issues with a flexible auto-assignment system, which takes into account the product being supported, user's business line, current user load and even the vacation status of relevant analysts. Finally, the quality can be monitored through built-in reports and metrics that capture the latest information from both customers and support personnel.

"The IP Gear CAD HelpDesk, has consolidated our support systems in a way that was not previously possible," commented Lambert van den Hoven, vice president and general manager, Design Technology Group, Philips Semiconductors. "The adoption by the users right across the organization has been tremendous and the improvement in support efficiency for both our internal customers and the support groups is clear."

"Synchronicity's products facilitate both collaboration and communication globally," said Dennis Harmon, Synchronicity CEO. "We have learned the requirements of today's EDA and CAD support organizations and applied them in a natural progression to develop our technology, so customers such as Philips Semiconductors can see dramatic improvements in their design and support efficiency through the world-wide adoption of Synchronicity applications."

Pricing and Availability
The CAD Helpdesk is available now with solutions that span from workgroups to multi-nationals organizations for $75,000 to $500,000.

About Synchronicity
Synchronicity accelerates innovation with design collaboration software. Eight of the top-ten semiconductor companies use Synchronicity to connect their design chain; at the team, enterprise and/or market levels. Our solutions enable IC, embedded software and system developers to move from concept to product to revenue more quickly by implementing best practices, managing design content, capturing design intent, tracking project status and facilitating design reuse. Headquartered in Marlboro, MA, (508) 485-4122, Synchronicity has offices worldwide. For more information visit www.synchronicity.com.

The Synchronicity logo is a registered trademark and IP Gear a trademark of Synchronicity, Inc. of Marlboro, MA. All other trademarks are acknowledged as property of their owners.

For more information contact:

Trent Poltronetti
Synchronicity Inc.
(408) 817-9600 x232
trent@synchronicity.com

Karen Tyrrell
VitalCom PR
(650) 637-8212
karen@vitalcompr.com

Annette Bley
Bley PR, UK
+44 (0)20 7482 4800
annette@annettebleypr.com