Academie des Sciences Elects Esterel Chief Scientist as Fourth Computer

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. and Elancourt, France -- January 13, 2003 - Gerard Berry, creator of the ESTEREL language and Chief Scientist of Esterel Technologies, a global provider of design solutions for safety- and verification-critical systems, has been elected the fourth full computer science member of the Academie des Sciences.

An elite organization at the head of French scientific research with a history going back to 1666, the Academie des Sciences elects members, both in France and internationally, who have made a significant contribution to scientific knowledge.

A specialist in the mathematical semantics of programming Berry, 54, is widely known for pioneering the concept of synchronous languages. As Director of the Applied Mathematics Centre at Ecole des Mines in the 1990s Berry and his team developed ESTEREL, one of the original synchronous languages, in a joint project with INRIA, one of Europe's largest computer science institutes. With the involvement of major commercial organizations such as Dassault, Berry subsequently applied ESTEREL first to the design of electronic system software and then to describe electronic hardware.

He became Chief Scientist of Esterel Technologies in 2001. Berry's work at Esterel Technologies is currently focused on creating the next generation of synchronous language, the foundation of Esterel Technologies' "correct by construction" specification-to-implementation solutions.

Commented Gerard Berry: "This great honor underlines the industrial significance of the programming problems I've been working on for thirty years. Now within Esterel Technologies I am bringing that work to fruition by developing tools with which industry can create reliable electronics for safety and verification-critical applications so that cars stay on the road and planes stay in the air."

About Esterel Technologies
Esterel Technologies provides electronic system and embedded software designers with methodologies and tools that improve their productivity and remove the barriers between system specification, implementation and validation. The company's products automate costly and time-consuming coding and validation work through executable specification, intelligent test suite generation and automatic code generation. Esterel Technologies has offices in France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Contacts:
Esterel Technologies - Maria Frummet, 650-641-1714
maria.frummet@esterel-technologies.com

Carne Communications - Jeremy Carne, +44 (0)20 7384 2500
jeremyc@carne.com