Synplicity's Synplify ASIC Adopted by Industry Leaders; Quality of Results and Vendor Endorsements Fuel Growth in ASIC Products

PARIS—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Feb. 17, 2004— Synplicity Inc. (Nasdaq:SYNP), a leading supplier of software for the design and verification of semiconductors, today announced the rapid adoption of its ASIC synthesis technology, including a doubling of ASIC synthesis license revenues in 2003 over the prior year. Since Synplicity's entrance into the ASIC synthesis market in June 2001, 70 companies have purchased its Synplify ASIC(R) and Amplify ASIC(TM) software, and 12 ASIC vendors have endorsed the software. Synplicity attributes the success of its ASIC synthesis software to the tool's industry-leading capacity and runtime, feature-rich functionality, plug-and-play compatibility with current ASIC flows and its focus on ASIC vendors and the design handoff market.

High-Volume Products Designed with the Synplify ASIC Software

The Synplify ASIC software leverages Synplicity's proven synthesis technology and delivers high quality of results up to 15 times faster than traditional synthesis tools. The software's memory efficiency enables designers to perform timing-driven synthesis on multi-million-gate designs in a single operation using Synplicity's MultiPoint(TM) automated hierarchical synthesis technology. This unique approach to ASIC synthesis enables Synplicity to win head-to-head engagements against other synthesis tools when customers compare area, runtime and timing performance.

"The Synplify ASIC software was selected as one of the ASIC synthesis tools at Raytheon Missile Systems because of its speed (10 X speed improvement or better in some applications), ease of use and accuracy," said Dave Richardson, Raytheon Missile Systems. "This tool enhances the engineer's ability to perform the rigorous functions required by today's standards."

The Synplify ASIC software typically meets user timing goals with up to 30 percent fewer gates than other tools. Several high-volume designs have taped out using the Synplify ASIC software, including products from digital camera, digital video, disk drive and computer peripheral equipment vendors.

"We selected the Synplify ASIC software for many reasons, but most importantly, the software achieves great quality of results and very fast runtimes simultaneously," said Masao Kuribayashi, General Manager, SoC technology department, R&D division, corporate R&D center, Olympus Corporation. "We were not surprised to find one of our key IP suppliers also using the Synplify ASIC software to achieve notable performance and area results. We plan to use the Synplify ASIC software on upcoming Olympus product developments."

"Synplify ASIC from Synplicity has been used in our current flow. What we have gained from Synplify ASIC are smaller area and less routing congestion, which makes the netlist more layout friendly. We are also very pleased with the run time advantage, which is a 60 percent improvement," said Tom Chun, ASIC design manager at Adaptec Corporation.

Ralph Haines, VP Engineering of QuickSilver Technology said, "Our Adaptive Computing Machine (ACM) is primarily used in handheld, mobile, and wireless products that require small area ICs with high performance and low power consumption. We chose the Synplify ASIC synthesis tool because it offers the best area reduction as compared to other tools, thus strengthening our competitive advantage. We have recently received our first prototype samples using Synplify ASIC and are happy to report first pass success."

Additionally, GlobespanVirata, Inc., a leading supplier of silicon and software for broadband communications, has leveraged the speed of the Synplify ASIC tool to deliver a right-on-time SoC tape-out. Advanced Product Features Come Standard

The Synplify ASIC and Amplify ASIC products both are indicative of Synplicity's history of delivering new features and capabilities at a rapid pace. In the past year, power optimization (automatic clock gating); advanced datapath module generators; RTL, gate level, and placement level graphical debug environment (HDL Analyst(R) and Physical Analyst(TM)); automated RTL floorplanning; and many other features have been delivered to customers under maintenance. Synplicity's ASIC synthesis products have all features bundled into a single license; there are no separately priced options to purchase once you have chosen which product to use. Synplicity's ASIC synthesis products are supported on all major platforms, including 64-bit Solaris and Linux.

Focus on ASIC Vendor Handoff Market

Synplicity attributes much of the success of its Synplify ASIC software to its collaboration with ASIC vendors to improve the gate-level netlist handoff process. Synplicity believes with today's COT approach to design, the needs of front-end ASIC designers and ASIC vendors have not received the focus required to solve them. Synplicity recently received full design kit support from Fujitsu Microelectronics in its December 2003 IP Symphony release for its EA82, SC82, CS86, CS91, CA91 (AccelArray) device technology. In addition, Kawasaki Microelectronics is the latest ASIC vendor to provide support for the Synplify ASIC tool.

"We are pleased to offer synthesis libraries for Synplify ASIC," said Yoshihito Nishizaki, Group Chief, CAD System Front End Development for Kawasaki Microelectronics (KME). "We share with Synplicity a focus on fast time-to-market for ASIC and FPGA to ASIC conversions."

More information on Kawasaki Microelectronics is available through the Technical Resource Center function within the Synplify ASIC software.

Leadership In Structured and Platform ASIC Design

Synplicity also continues to experience success in delivering ASIC synthesis and ASIC physical synthesis technology to the emerging Structured and Platform ASIC market. In February 2003, Synplicity released the first custom mapping and optimization software for NEC's ISSP(TM) Structured ASIC devices. In October 2003, Synplicity and NEC Electronics announced the development of the Amplify(R) ISSP(TM) software, a dedicated physical synthesis for ISSP devices. In April 2003 Synplicity and LSI Logic announced a collaboration to develop custom physical synthesis for LSI Logic's RapidChip(TM) Platform ASIC technology. LSI Logic's RapidWorx(TM) tool suite entered into official production in January 2004, including the Amplify(R) RapidChip software for customized ASIC physical synthesis of LSI Logic's RapidChip Platform ASIC products.

"LSI Logic and Synplicity developed and released design tools in 2003 that are optimized for our RapidChip Platform ASICs," said Mark Nelson, senior director of RapidChip marketing at LSI Logic. "As part of our RapidWorx design system, Synplicity's Amplify RapidChip physical synthesis has such tight correlation to the final route timing that customers are saving time and eliminating timing closure loops."

Synplicity's software has been endorsed for use by all current vendors of Structured and Platform ASIC products, and Synplicity has seen requests for the Synplify ASIC evaluation software double in the past year alongside the emergence of these new device architectures.

"Over the two and a half years we've been in the ASIC synthesis market, Synplicity has made a big impact," said John Gallagher, director of marketing for ASIC synthesis at Synplicity. "In this relatively short amount of time, we believe we have delivered the area reduction, high capacity and fast runtimes our customers need for multi-million gate designs to be completed. We have focused on ASIC vendor handoff flows, and we have worked more than 18 months to develop dedicated Structured and Platform ASIC products. This has led to endorsements and development agreements with top ASIC vendors, tapeout successes and a growing worldwide customer base. We believe we are the only ASIC synthesis provider whose explicit goal is to improve the front-end handoff process for ASIC vendors or back-end design teams, rather than competing with ASIC vendors by promoting COT flows."

About Synplicity

Synplicity(R) Inc. (Nasdaq: SYNP) is a leading supplier of innovative synthesis, verification and physical implementation software solutions that enable the rapid and effective design and verification of semiconductors. Synplicity's high-quality, high-performance tools significantly reduce costs and time-to-market for FPGA, Structured/Platform ASIC and cell-based/COT ASIC designers. The company's underlying Behavior Extracting Synthesis Technology(R) (BEST(TM)), which is embedded in its logical, physical and verification tools, and has led to Synplicity's top position in FPGA synthesis, now provides the same fast runtimes and quality of results to ASIC and COT customers. The company's fast, easy-to-use products support industry standard design languages (VHDL and Verilog) and run on popular platforms. Synplicity employs over 270 people in its 20 facilities worldwide. Synplicity is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information visit http://www.synplicity.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements including, but not limited to, statements regarding the capabilities and performance of our Synplify ASIC software. These statements are only predictions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual performance or achievements of the Synplify ASIC software to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such performance or achievements could differ materially due to a number of factors, including the performance and quality of Synplify ASIC's timing estimation relative to other ASIC synthesis software and the growth and changing technical requirements in the programmable semiconductor market. For additional information and considerations regarding the risks faced by Synplicity, see its annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2002 as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as other periodic reports filed with the SEC from time to time, including its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. Although Synplicity believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, Synplicity cannot guarantee the future performance or achievements of its software. In addition, neither Synplicity nor any other person assumes responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of these forward-looking statements. Synplicity disclaims any obligation to update information contained in any forward-looking statement.

Synplicity, Behavior Extracting Synthesis Technology, Synplify ASIC, Amplify and HDL Analyst are registered trademarks of Synplicity Inc. BEST, Amplify ASIC, Multipoint and Physical Analyst are trademarks of Synplicity Inc. All other names mentioned herein are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their owners.

Synplicity Inc.
John Gallagher, 408-215-6000
johng@synplicity.com
or
Porter Novelli
Steve Gabriel, 408-369-1500 x27
steve.gabriel@porternovelli.com