Agere Systems and Cadence Design Systems Donate ChartReuse-II to VSI Alliance

VSI Alliance Continues Development of an Intellectual Property Assessment Worksheet Incorporating Important Aspects of ChartReuse II

When released in the third quarter of this year, the VSIA Quality Metric will allow designers who adopt this standard to grade IP blocks containing soft and hard IP objectively. This will then be extended to embedded systems IP containing digital, verification and software IP provided separately or as a system.

Agere Systems, a new member of the VSIA, joins long-standing member Cadence(R) in developing ChartReuse-II to address the growing availability of embedded systems IP and the need to foster IP supplier participation in ensuring consistent, high-quality development of intellectual property to service the marketplace. Both companies have joined the VSIA Quality Development Working Group (DWG) to work with the DWG's chairman and members, who have been working diligently toward the release of an updated Quality Assessment metric later this year.

"VSIA is taking the lead in addressing embedded SoCs and has historically addressed the issue of hardware IP quality," said Michael Kaskowitz, VSIA president. "Many of our members have told us that quality is one of the most important problems they have to address. The existing work of our Quality DWG, combined with the donation of ChartReuse-II and the volunteer efforts of Agere Systems and Cadence, will result in a common, industry-accepted and readily utilized Quality Metric."

"We've enjoyed our work with Cadence and with the VSIA to create the ChartReuse-II program," said William Billowitch, IP design reuse & development manager at Agere Systems. "The donation of the program to VSIA will help intellectual property suppliers provide consistently high-quality IP that is easy for semiconductor developers to incorporate into complex designs with low risk."

"We are pleased to work with the VSIA because we share a similar philosophy about the importance of high-quality IP in an emerging embedded-systems marketplace," said Aurangzeb Khan, Cadence corporate vice president and general manager of Cadence Design Foundry(R). "Designs at nanometer-scale process nodes will need to integrate an increasingly larger number of predeveloped IP blocks. So having a good methodology for reusing IP is becoming an increasingly important competitive advantage for semiconductor providers."

About Agere Systems

Agere Systems is a premier provider of advanced integrated circuit solutions for wireless data, high-density storage and multi-service networking applications. Agere's wireless data portfolio enables seamless network access and Internet connectivity through industry-leading WiFi/802.11 solutions for wireless LANs and computing applications, as well as its GPRS offering for data-capable cellular phones. The company also provides custom and standard multi-service networking solutions, such as broadband Ethernet-over-SONET/SDH components and wireless infrastructure chips, to move information across metro, access and enterprise networks. Agere is the market leader in providing integrated circuits such as read-channel chips, preamplifiers and system-on-a-chip solutions for high-density storage applications. Agere's customers include the leading PC manufacturers, wireless terminal providers, network equipment suppliers and hard-disk drive providers. More information about Agere Systems is available from its Web site at www.agere.com.

About Cadence

Cadence is the largest supplier of electronic design technologies, methodology services, and design services. Cadence solutions are used to accelerate and manage the design of semiconductors, computer systems, networking and telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics, and a variety of other electronics-based products. With approximately 5,300 employees and 2002 revenues of approximately $1.3 billion, Cadence has sales offices, design centers, and research facilities around the world. The company is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., and traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CDN. More information about the company, its products and services is available at www.cadence.com.

About VSIA

The VSI Alliance (VSIA) is an open, international organization dedicated to improving the productivity of System-on-Chip (SoC) development by specifying open standards and specifications that facilitate the integration of software and hardware Intellectual Property (IP) from multiple sources and by identifying and providing solutions to the business barriers that inhibit adoption of standards. The VSIA membership includes representatives from all segments of the SoC industry: System houses, Semiconductor vendors, Electronic Design Automation (EDA) companies, and Intellectual Property (IP) providers. Many companies have adopted the use of VSIA specifications, standards and documents. VSIA has wide industry participation with more than 120 member companies from around the world. Membership is open to any company with an interest in the development and promotion of open standards used in the design of SoC. For more information, visit the VSIA web site at www.vsi.org, or e-mail to info@vsi.org.

Cadence, Cadence Design Foundry, and the Cadence logo are registered trademarks of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. VSI Alliance is a trademark of the Virtual Socket Interface Alliance, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

CONTACT: Cadence Design Systems, Inc.
             Dean Solov, 408/914-6077
             dsolov@cadence.com
               or
             Agere Systems
             Steven Goldsmith, 610/712-6737
             goldsmith@agere.com
               or
             Cain Communications
             Hillary Cain, 831/685-0195
             hcain@caincom.com