Synchronicity Ships Industry's First Solution to Manage SoC Development the Way Designers Think

SAN JOSE, Calif. - March 25, 2002 - Synchronicity Inc. today announced the immediate availability of the SoC Developer Suite featuring the industry's first solution to manage system-on-chip (SoC) designs hierarchically - the way engineers think. The SoC Developer Suite features significant new core technology - the Hierarchical Configuration Manager™ (HCM), which allows designers to work with design data at the chip, block and cell levels to speed development of very large SoCs.

With the HCM, each block can represent any level of the design hierarchy, from leaf cell through DSP core to the whole IC. Activities such as versioning the history of blocks and the chips that use the blocks, releasing blocks that have met validation criteria, and packaging blocks for re-use can now be performed in an intuitive, repeatable manner with the HCM.

The HCM lets designers define hierarchical relationships between blocks and provides a simple yet powerful interface to work on the entire hierarchy of blocks as one entity. This inherent knowledge and processing of hierarchy helps minimize the costly, hard-to-detect mistakes of managing each block's design data. Designers, chip architects, and project managers can ensure their actions to enhance product performance and value are done on a block within the context of the appropriate design hierarchy. The robust use model speeds the roll out of the suite and implementation of best design practices for large SoC teams.

The benefits of the SoC Developer Suite are further extended when a company also uses Synchronicity's IP Gear Publisher Suite. Any component that has been published in a Publisher Suite Catalog is an eligible block for the HCM. This compatibility increases the return on both the company's reuse and design management systems.

The SoC Developer Suite is built on the Standard Developer Suite, which bundles Synchronicity's widely deployed ProjectSync and DesignSync tools for project collaboration and design management. ProjectSync boosts team productivity with threaded communications, lifecycle and issue tracking and management reporting. In the SoC Developer Suite, ProjectSync's reporting capabilities are enhanced to support queries and email subscriptions that traverse the block hierarchy across multiple servers. These reports can include Publisher Suite Helpdesk entries filed on 'published' components that are also used in the HCM block hierarchy. DesignSync adds secure multi-site version control and release and configuration management. The SoC Developer Suite joins the HLD and Physical Developer Suites, tuned to the needs of front and back-end chip designers respectively.

"Designing 100+ million transistor chips demands new ways to plan and manage the development process," said Dennis Harmon, president and CEO of Synchronicity. "We are the first to address these demands by offering a powerful solution that can manage these huge designs in the hierarchical manner in which engineers have to plan and think."

Pricing and Availability
The SoC Developer Suite is available now starting at $5,500. The Hierarchical Configuration Manager™ (HCM) is available as an option to current customers and to customers that want to use more than one role specific Developer Suite, such as the HLD and SoC.

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.

Companies developing electronic products use Synchronicity's IP Gear Publisher Suite to catalog, deliver and support Intellectual Property (IP); thus enabling their engineers around the world to find, evaluate and download existing designs. IP Gear is widely used for design reuse and IP distribution, and has become the de facto standard for moving designs in and between companies.

The Synchronicity Developer Suites boost design team collaboration and productivity. The Standard Developer Suite bundles DesignSync for multi-site version control and release and configuration management; with ProjectSync for threaded team communications, lifecycle and issue tracking and management reporting. The HLD, SoC and Physical Developer Suites add role specific forms, templates, use models, documentation and tools. Together our products form an integrated solution to connect and manage the entire electronics design chain.

Synchronicity, DesignSync, ProjectSync and the Synchronicity Logo are registered trademarks and IP Gear, Synchronicity Publisher Suite, Synchronicity Consumer Suite, Synchronicity Developer Suite, HLD Developer Suite, SoC Developer Suite, Physical Developer Suite and Hierarchical Configuration Manager are trademarks of Synchronicity Software Inc. of Marlboro, MA. All other trademarks are acknowledged as property of their owners.