STARC Completes VSIA QIP Metric Beta Program

Wakefield, MA. – December 13, 2005 – The VSI Alliance (VSIA) today announced that Japanese-based STARC (Semiconductor Technology Academic Research Center) is among the first organizations to complete the VSIA QIP Metric Beta Testing Program. Beta Test was executed by the IP Quality working group in STARC.

“VSIA has always seen Japan as an important player in the world semiconductor arena. The Japanese special interest group was our first regional SIG,” said Mike Kaskowitz, VSIA President. “Participating in the VSIA QIP Metric Beta and being among the first to complete the program show STARC’s desire to influence international standards.”

Launched in August 2005, the VSIA QIP Metric Beta program began with input from IP vendors and then moved to include IP integrators. In addition to STARC, companies participating in Beta testing of the QIP Metric include Cadence Design Systems, Denali Software, edacentrum, Freescale Semiconductor, LSI Logic, Mentor Graphics, Philips, STMicroelectronics and others. The QIP Metric is expected to be released to the public in Q1 2006.

“STARC members that participated in the Beta program see the VSIA QIP Metric as an important tool that enables the fair evaluation of an IP core prior to purchase. We found the tool easy to use and highly complete,” said Yoshiharu Furui, Senior Manager, IP Reuse Group in STARC.

About VSIA QIP Metric
The VSIA QIP Metric is a tool that can aggressively reduce the time typically required to make an IP purchase decision and to integrate the core.  The Metric helps the IP vendor and IP consumer communicate based on an objective foundation. Besides setting up the basis for measuring a core’s characteristics against an industry-approved list of attributes, the metric provides a view of the IP vendor’s general approach to IP development. This enables a continuous improvement mechanism, and in turn, levels the playing field for vendors and allows an integrator to evaluate similar cores from competing vendors.
For more information on the VSIA, go to www.vsi.org

About VSIA
The VSI Alliance (VSIA) is an open, international organization that includes representatives from all segments of the SoC industry: System houses, Semiconductor vendors, Electronic Design Automation (EDA) companies, and Intellectual Property (IP) providers. VSIA’s mission is to dramatically enhance the productivity of the SoC design community by providing leading edge commercial and technical solutions and insight into the development, integration and reuse of IP. VSIA has wide industry participation with more than 70 member companies from around the world. Membership is open to any company with an interest in the development and promotion of business solutions and open standards used in the design of System-on-Chip. For more information, visit the VSIA web site at www.vsi.org.

About STARC
The Semiconductor Technology Academic Research Center, STARC, is a research consortium co-founded by eleven major Japanese semiconductor companies* in December 1995. STARC’s mission is to contribute the growth of the Japanese semiconductor industry by developing leading-edge SoC design technologies.

Currently, STARC is pursuing five objectives toward achieving its mission:
  1) Development of technologies for improving design productivity;
  2) Development of technologies aimed at re-use and sharing of design assets (IP);
  3) Development of design technologies to increase the added value of SoC;
  4) Promotion of collaborative research with universities;
  5) Training and educational support for engineers and researchers in the semiconductor field;

Note: *) (In Alphabetical Order)
Fujitsu Limited, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.,
NEC Electronics Corporation, Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd,
Renesas Technology Corporation, Rohm Co., Ltd,
Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd, Seiko Epson Corporation,
    Sharp Corporation, Sony Corporation, Toshiba Corporation

For more information, visit the STARC web site at www.starc.jp/index-e.html.