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Synplicity's Industry-Leading FPGA Synthesis Product Adds Support for Altera's New Stratix II FPGAs
Amplify Software Now Extracts Physical Hierarchy To Guide
Design Planning
PARIS—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Feb. 17, 2004—
Synplicity Inc. (Nasdaq:SYNP), a leading supplier of software for
the design and verification of semiconductors, today announced it has
enhanced its Amplify(R) FPGA physical synthesis and Synplify Pro(R)
FPGA synthesis software to include new support for Altera(R) and
Xilinx devices. With this new version, the Synplify Pro software
offers new features to support the recently announced Stratix(TM) II
family of FPGAs from Altera. Enhancements to Synplicity's Amplify FPGA
physical synthesis software include support for a hierarchical timing
report, enabling faster timing closure, and support for the low-cost
Spartan 3 family of FPGAs from Xilinx. With the latest versions of the
Amplify 3.5 and Synplify Pro 7.5 software, Synplicity continues its
efforts to deliver best-in-class performance for FPGA designers.
The latest version of the Synplify software includes an
auto-constraint feature, providing significant savings in design time
and a further advantage in timing performance. This unique automatic
constraint feature within the Synplify Pro software automatically
tightens timing constraints until a maximum clock frequency is
achieved. This is done incrementally without the need to completely
re-run synthesis, providing an automated way to boost timing
performance of the design. The auto-constraint feature typically gets
within five percent of what handcrafted constraints can achieve, while
eliminating the days or weeks designers often spend creating and
modifying their constraints.
"We are committed to maintaining our leadership position in FPGA
synthesis and believe we have extended our lead in both timing
performance and area/cost reduction with this new release," said Jeff
Garrison, director of marketing, Synplicity. "Altera's Stratix II
FPGAs are an impressive new family of devices that we believe will
open up new types of applications for programmable logic. The Stratix
II family is built upon a new and innovative FPGA architecture and we
have worked with Altera for over a year to provide excellent timing
and area optimizations for our mutual customers upon its release."
Synplicity's Amplify FPGA software is the only true physical
synthesis tool for FPGAs. Other tools perform physical
re-optimizations based upon initial place and route, but only the
Amplify software performs simultaneous detailed placement and physical
optimizations all the way from RTL through placed gates, resulting in
higher-level optimizations and improved timing closure. In the latest
version of the Amplify software, Synplicity extracts a design's
physical hierarchy and reports it through a hierarchical "island"
timing report. The island-based timing report enables faster timing
closure by providing users with detailed guidance in order to make it
easier to understand what portion of a design should be floorplanned.
This timing report is also useful when creating physical constraints
by identifying which instances belong to multiple critical paths and
how the critical paths are connected together.
The Synplify 7.5 software delivers enhanced support for the
Verilog2001 standard, including multi-dimensional array support. This
new support enables designers to describe their functionality more
efficiently, significantly reducing pages of HDL code. The Synplify
Pro software also includes a new error messaging system that enhances
productivity by making it easier for users to filter messages created
by the Synplify(R) software and view the messages by category. For
instance, the new system filters for warnings and errors so that users
can see only new or selected types of errors and warnings during HDL
compilation.
Pricing and Availability
The Amplify 3.5, Synplify 7.5 and Synplify Pro 7.5 software are
available now. Pricing for the Amplify software starts at $29,000
(U.S.). Pricing for the Synplify software starts at $9,500 (U.S.) and
pricing for Synplify Pro software starts at $20,000 (U.S.). For more
information, contact Synplicity at http://www.synplicity.com.
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 performance of
Synplicity's Amplify 3.5, Synplify 7.5 and Synplify Pro 7.5 software,
both individually and used in conjunction with devices from Altera and
Xilinx, as applicable, and Synplicity's leadership position in FPGA
synthesis. These statements are only predictions and involve known and
unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause
Synplicity's position in the FPGA market and the performance or
achievements of Synplicity's Amplify 3.5, Synplify 7.5 and Synplify
Pro 7.5 to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the
forward-looking statements. In some cases, you will be able to
identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as "may,"
"will," "should," "expects," "believes" or the negative of these terms
or other comparable terminology. Such market position, performance or
achievements could differ materially due to a number of factors,
including the performance and quality of our software products
relative to other logic synthesis products for FPGAs, the acceptance
of our software products by existing and new customers and the growth
and changing technical requirements in the programmable semiconductor
market, particularly with respect to FPGAs. 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, Amplify, Behavior Extracting Synthesis Technology,
Synplify and Synplify Pro are registered trademarks of Synplicity
Inc. BEST is a trademark of Synplicity Inc. All other brands or
products are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their
respective owners.
Contact:
Synplicity Inc.
Jeff Garrison, 408-215-6000
jeff@synplicity.com
or
Porter Novelli
Steve Gabriel, 408-369-1500
steve.gabriel@porternovelli.com
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