Synplicity Improves FPGA Physical Synthesis Quality of Results and Adds New Device Support

Company Adds MultiPoint Incremental Synthesis, Interactive Timing
Analysis and More Physical Optimizations to the Amplify Physical
Optimizer Software

"Using the Amplify software to perform simultaneous placement and optimization, we believe designers can achieve an average performance boost of approximately 20 percent over traditional logic synthesis solutions -- often enough to move a design to a lower speed-grade device and create the potential for saving tens of thousands of dollars for volume applications," said Jeff Garrison, director of marketing for FPGA products at Synplicity. "As this enhanced software demonstrates, we continue to work closely with Altera and Xilinx to create an optimized flow between our physical synthesis solution and their new devices, allowing our customers to obtain better timing performance and superior FPGA design methodologies."

MultiPoint Synthesis Methodology for Complex Designs

With support for the MultiPoint technology within the Amplify Physical Optimizer software, Synplicity delivers an intelligent incremental physical synthesis design flow that provides excellent quality of results for complex FPGAs. The MultiPoint technology enables a unique difference-based incremental synthesis approach. This eliminates the need for complete re-synthesis, which is common with time-stamp-based incremental flows, by only re-synthesizing design entities that will have a different gate-level netlist due to code or constraint changes. The Amplify Physical Optimizer software's MultiPoint flow improves productivity by offering support for designers using the Xilinx Incremental Design Flow and Altera's LogicLock(TM) feature within the Quartus(R) II design software.

Synplicity has also added interactive timing analysis capabilities, enabling designers to identify critical paths quickly and perform fast, interactive timing analysis without re-synthesizing their design. The timing analysis feature allows users to incrementally specify "from-to" paths in their circuit for instant detailed analysis, saving time and improving productivity. Additionally, Synplicity has enhanced the Verilog 2001 language support for the software and has optimized its physical synthesis algorithms to provide better performance and quality of results.

Support for Leading FPGA Devices

Leveraging Synplicity's extensive expertise in mapping to DSP and memory structures, the new optimized Amplify software enables the rapid design and development of Altera's high-performance Stratix and Stratix GX device families. The new version of the Amplify software solution offers features that accelerate high-performance FPGA design, including support for Stratix and Stratix GX DSP blocks. Likewise, Synplicity has applied its custom mapping capabilities to support Altera's low-cost Cyclone devices, which are ideal for high-volume applications.

"Our main goal is to provide our customers with leading-edge tools and design flows that significantly improve their design performance," said Tim Southgate, vice president of software and tools marketing at Altera. "By working closely with Synplicity, our customers now have access to a software tool that delivers a high-level of performance and productivity required to maximize the performance benefits of our high-performance Stratix, high-speed transceiver based Stratix GX, and low-cost Cyclone devices."

For designers using Xilinx devices, such as Virtex II-Pro, the Amplify software offers new support for block multipliers, DLLs (Delay-Locked Loops) and DCMs (Digital Clock Managers) in its physical view, improving designer productivity.

"An incremental flow can greatly facilitate fast time to market, especially for function-rich designs with Virtex II-Pro devices," said Dave Bennett, vice president of software development at Xilinx. "With support for MultiPoint technology and Xilinx's Incremental Design Flow in the Amplify software, our mutual customers will benefit from an optimized design flow that can result in better timing performance even with lower speed-grade devices. This, coupled with recent price reductions for V-II Pro silicon manufactured using 300mm wafers, can result in a significant savings for designers over the life of a product."

Pricing and Availability

Driven by the proprietary Behavior Extracting Synthesis Technology(R) (BEST(TM)) algorithms, Synplicity's Amplify Physical Optimizer software can synthesize even the largest programmable devices quickly and efficiently. The software also utilizes Synplicity's proprietary physical synthesis technology to perform simultaneous placement and logic optimization enabling designers to achieve maximum performance from their high-density FPGAs.

The Amplify Physical Optimizer software is available now as an option to Synplicity's Synplify Pro(R) logic synthesis software. Pricing begins at $29,000 (U.S.). Current customers on maintenance will be upgraded at no additional cost.

About Synplicity

Synplicity, Inc. (Nasdaq:SYNP) 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, since the year 2000 Dataquest has named Synplicity as the #1 provider of PLD synthesis tools, announcing a 54 percent market share in 2001. 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, 2002, Synplicity employed over 250 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, functionality and enhancements of current products 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 such specific features, functionality or enhancements may occur as described in the press release or at all.

Synplicity, Amplify, Behavior Extracting Synthesis Technology and Synplify Pro are registered trademarks of Synplicity, Inc. BEST, MultiPoint and Physical Optimizer are trademarks of Synplicity, Inc. All other brands or products are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

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CONTACT: Synplicity, Inc.
             Jeff Garrison, 408/215-6000 (Reader)
             jeff@synplicity.com
             or
             Porter Novelli
             Steve Gabriel, 408/369-1500 (PR)
             steve.gabriel@porternovelli.com