Cadence and CoWare Alliance to Provide Unified System-to-Silicon Design Solution; SystemC-Based Transaction-Level Design Unites Cadence Incisive and CoWare ConvergenSC

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 8, 2003--Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (NYSE:CDN) and CoWare, Inc. today announced a strategic alliance to accelerate time-to-market for system-on-chip (SoC) design teams through a standards-based system-to-silicon-design solution. This multifaceted relationship includes joint development, cross-licensing, a coordinated go-to-market and standards strategy, and a Cadence equity investment in CoWare(R). The alliance provides a unified solution from electronic system-level (ESL) design through RTL implementation for advanced SoC designs and a new connection in the design chain.

"Customers designing complex systems are asking for a new generation of electronic design," said Penny Herscher, Cadence executive vice president and general manager. "As the leader in functional verification -- committed to providing the best technology platforms for our customers -- we are teaming up with CoWare, the leader in ESL, to form this first of its kind alliance. Based on shared technology and a common go-to-market approach, this alliance will provide the solutions our customers are asking for and develop the market."

Electronic design companies have long had separate system and IC design teams, each with their own unique development environment. With increasingly complex SoC designs, the gap between system and IC design environments has become a critical bottleneck.

"A new level of design abstraction only occurs once a decade and each has a profound, long-term market impact," said Alan Naumann, CEO of CoWare. "Enabling this next move requires connecting the software-centric world of systems design to hardware verification. By partnering with Cadence, the leader in unified verification technology, we are linking these worlds using open standards. This will accelerate the adoption of the new ESL methodology by making it easy to plug into our customers' existing verification flows."

CoWare and Cadence are seizing the opportunity created by the SystemC standard to provide a new level of design capability, speed, and efficiency. The first step is the creation of a system-to-silicon design solution based on CoWare's ConvergenSC(TM) and LISATek(TM) system-level design products and the Cadence(R) Incisive(TM) functional verification platform. The allied companies are working with SoC design leaders such as ARM to ensure this unified flow is supported by interoperable IP.

"ARM is committed to working with its partners to develop and promote open technology solutions that accelerate platform-based design of advanced SoCs," said Simon Segars, executive vice president, Engineering at ARM. "Cadence and CoWare bring together leading system-level design and verification tools. Through our collaboration with them on SystemC models, more design teams will now be able explore ARM core-based designs earlier in the product cycle."

The Alliance

The alliance is a multifaceted relationship that leverages each company's technology and business strengths. It promotes the rapidly emerging transaction level of abstraction enabled by the SystemC standard system language, and provides the critical link for unifying the two worlds of system and IC design.

"STMicroelectronics, as a worldwide leader in System-on-Chip (SoC) for the consumer, telecom and other markets, depends on designing new SoC architectures rapidly for the marketplace. We firmly believe that this capability is enabled by assembling design blocks, all modeled at the same, industry-standard, high level of abstraction," said Philippe Magarshack, Central R&D group vice-president, Design Automation at STMicroelectronics. "We are adopting SystemC as the base for all our new system developments and we have been proposing to OSCI, together with Cadence and CoWare, as well as ARM, a possible transaction-level modeling paradigm, and trust that OSCI will converge it rapidly into an industry-adopted standard. By working closely together, Cadence and CoWare will bring to our system designers a solution that understands this emerging standard, and covers design and verification of both Software and Hardware."

The two companies will coordinate their go-to-market activities, with CoWare focusing on the electronic system-level design market, while Cadence focuses on the functional verification market. The companies' field sales and support teams will have shared goals and aligned interests in making joint customers successful.

As part of a special licensing agreement, the financial terms of which were not disclosed, Cadence has transferred to CoWare its Signal Processing Worksystem (SPW) group. The addition of SPW extends CoWare's ESL leadership by adding algorithm design to its processor, bus, SoC architecture, and hardware/software co-design tools. Cadence also has made an equity investment in CoWare.

About CoWare

CoWare, the leading supplier of system-level electronic design automation (EDA) software, is revolutionizing system on chip (SoC) and embedded software development by enabling engineers to create design platforms optimized for specific market requirements. Its software is employed today by major systems, intellectual property (IP) and semiconductor companies worldwide. For the second year, the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal has recognized CoWare as one of the fastest-growing private companies in Silicon Valley. For more information, visit http://www.coware.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 5,000 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.

Cadence and the Cadence logo are registered trademarks, and Incisive is a trademark of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

CoWare is a registered trademark, and ConvergenSC and LISATek are trademarks of CoWare, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

CONTACT: Cadence Design Systems 
             Judy Erkanat, 408-894-2302
             jerkanat@cadence.com
              or
             Armstrong Kendall, Inc.
             Jen Bernier, 408-268-8772
             jen@akipr.com