Qualis and Sonics Partnership Produces OCP-Compliant Domain Verification Component

Latest extension to the Qualis DVC platform offers a 10x to 25x productivity increase for verification of designs incorporating Open Core Protocol interfaces

LAKE OSWEGO, Oregon - 2002/07/29 -Qualis, Inc, the independent leader in advanced verification methodologies, has partnered with Sonics, Inc. to produce a powerful new Verification Component for Verisity (NASDAQ:VRST) Specman Elite that dramatically reduces the verification time of complex Intellectual Property (IP) cores and System on Chip (SoC) products that use the Open Core Protocol (OCP). Based on Qualis' advanced plug-and-play Domain Verification Component™ (DVC™) architecture and verification platform, the new component allows verification engineers to quickly build OCP-based verification environments that leverage the power of Specman Elite and advanced verification methodologies. As a member of Qualis' Core Interconnect family of DVCs, the new OCP DVC is designed to provide advanced, constrained-random OCP transaction generation, functional coverage information, transaction logging and scoreboarding. The component also incorporates Sonics' proprietary protocol checking enabling on-the-fly verification of compliance to the OCP protocol.

"Our new OCP DVC is the first member of our Core Interconnect DVC family to be released," said Michael Horne, president and CEO of Qualis. "We are extremely pleased to partner with Sonics in producing this ground-breaking technology. Sonics has been a leader in recognizing the importance of standard on-chip protocols as a way to accelerate complex SoC design flows. In verification, Qualis is the leader in protocol-centric verification components, for both on-chip and off-chip. The result of this partnership will benefit all users of OCP by significantly decreasing time in verification and provide an overall time-to-market advantage."

"On-chip interconnect systems are clearly following the earlier trend in off-chip interfaces towards standardization around a number of industry-standard protocols. Sonics and Qualis both recognize the broad industry support for OCP and the opportunity to join together in developing OCP-based products that provide customers a convincing path to first-pass silicon," said Ian Mackintosh, president of OCP-IP. "With their knowledge of advanced verification methodologies and experience in developing protocol-centric verification components, Qualis is well positioned to deliver solid solutions that break the verification bottleneck. This new DVC technology promises to help accelerate verification schedules and speed the adoption of OCP."

"Verification partners are a critical element of our SMART Initiative for accelerating complex SOC design," said Dave Lautzenheiser, vice president of marketing at Sonics. "More SOC design teams are turning to verification IP to shorten their design cycles and provide verification reuse for rapid validation of derivative designs. Qualis' OCP DVC for Verisity's Specman gives OCP users an off-the-shelf solution for the industry-standard OCP-compliant socket interface."

The OCP DVC is a complete test environment supporting the development of individual IPs or complete SoCs. Developed from the OCP 2.1 Specification, the DVC supports Basic, Simple, Complex and Sideband protocols. It is compatible with OCP-IP CoreCreator tools and functions as one or more OCP Master/Slave modules. Monitoring, on-the-fly protocol-checking, scoreboarding and functional coverage blocks are instantiated by the user then configured using the powerful constraint features of Verisity's Specman e language. Full random, constrained random, and directed transaction generation can be used, with or without error injection.

A complete listing of features of the OCP DVCs for Specman can be found on the Qualis Website at http://www.qualis.com/dvc.ocp.specman.pdf .

Pricing and availability

The OCP DVC will be available in September 2002 with early beta-release access available for select customers. All Qualis DVCs support interfacing to Verilog and VHDL designs. Annual licenses are priced at $US 10,000 each, with volume discounts available for customers who run large regression simulations. All DVCs come with full documentation and example configurations for typical verification environments. Qualis also offers full methodology training and premium support services for its DVCs, including its QuickRampTM family of DVC deployment solutions. For more information, visit http://www.qualis.com/dvc.html .

About Qualis

Qualis, Inc. is the leading independent verification methodology company offering a rich selection of productivity enhancing Domain Verification Components (DVCs), methodology consulting, and best-in-class training services. By leveraging its deep experience in verifying networking, processor/SoC, and wireless products, Qualis creates verification product solutions that solve the most challenging functional verification problems in the world. Users of Qualis revolutionary technology and verification methodology know-how build sustainable competitive advantages that keep them on the edge. Qualis is headquartered in Lake Oswego, Oregon and has development centers in Ottawa Ontario Canada, and Grenoble, France. For more information, see www.qualis.com .

About OCP-IP

The OCP International Partnership Association, Inc. (OCP-IP) was formed in December 2001 to promote and support the open core protocol (OCP) as the complete socket standard that ensures rapid creation and integration of interoperable virtual components. In addition to Sonics, Inc., the inventor of the OCP technology, OCP-IP's founding members and initial Governing Steering Committee participants are: Nokia [NYSE:NOK], Texas Instruments [NYSE:TXN], MIPS Technologies [NasdaqNM:MIPS], and United Microelectronics Corporation [NYSE:UMC]. OCP-IP is a non-profit corporation focused on delivering the first fully supported, openly licensed core-centric protocol that comprehensively fulfills system-level integration requirements. The OCP facilitates IP core reusability and reduces design time and risk, along with manufacturing costs for SOC designs. For additional background and membership information, visit www.OCPIP.org. www.ocpip.org

About Sonics, Inc.

About Sonics, Inc. Sonics, Inc. is a premier developer of intelligent semiconductor intellectual property (IP) solutions that dramatically accelerate complex system-on-chip (SOC) designs while minimizing risk. The Sonics Methodology and Architecture for Rapid Time-to market (SMART ) initiative is a comprehensive collection of products, services and partnerships to ensure customer success when utilizing Sonics' SMART Interconnect IP. SMART users can develop devices with higher functionality, lower power consumption and lower cost while achieving greater SOC complexity faster. Major semiconductor and systems companies have embraced Sonics SMART products for SOC applications in the communications, networking and multimedia markets, often reporting better than six-month design time savings with reduced design and manufacturing risks. For more information, see www.sonicsinc.com .

Qualis and the Qualis logo are registered trademarks of Qualis Design Corp. DVC, Domain Verification Component, and QuickRamp are trademarks of Qualis Design Corporation. Synopsys and VERA are registered trademarks of Synopsys, Inc. OpenVera is a trademark of Synopsys, Inc. Verisity and Specman Elite are registered trademarks of Verisity Design, Inc. All other trademarks or registered trademarks mentioned in this release are the intellectual property of their respective owners.