SEmulation Technology Combines ReConfigurable Computing-based Simulation and Emulation into a Single Platform for RTL Design Verification

Debugging Capabilities Eliminate Logic Analyzers, Emulation Setup Is Faster

SUNNYVALE, CA -April 17, 2000 -- Axis Systems, Inc. (Axis), a supplier of the fastest EDA verification solutions, announced today that the Company has developed a new technology-- SEmulation (SE) technology. SE technology combines the benefits of ReConfigurable Computing (RCC)-based accelerated simulation with in-circuit emulation.

Now design teams can verify designs with a single high-performance platform. Axis offers event-driven simulation with Xsim, RCC-based (RTL or gate-level) accelerated simulation with Xcite and RCC-based (RTL or gate-level) in-circuit emulation with its new SE technology.

According to Mike Tsai, Axis president and CEO, "Our mission is to provide breakthrough technology, which significantly reduces functional verification time. Our SE technology offers our customers another improved option for accelerating and improving design verification."

Verification-the Design Bottleneck
In its 1999 IC/ASIC Functional and Timing Verification study, Collett International Research asked chip design teams to rank their concerns with respect to difficulty, expense, time consumed or risk to their current project. Verifying correct functionality before tapeout was cited as their most serious concern. In addition, although among commercial emulation users a reduced design cycle time was reported most often as the most important benefit of emulation, the study found that only 17% of teams surveyed used a commercial emulation system in their project. Moreover, 31% of them considered the length of time to setup emulation to be the most serious drawback of using traditional commercial emulation technology, whereas for 16% the large amount of manpower required was seen as the most serious drawback.

Patented SE Technology
The SE technology has been in development by Axis for the past two years and has recently been granted a series of patents on its architecture for integrating simulation and emulation into a single platform. SE is the first emulation system to use an Adaptive Massive Parallel (AMP) event processing algorithm, which reduces setup time and improves debugging.

SE Technology Moves Emulation to Earlier in Design Cycle. Users of SE technology compile a RTL design directly into emulation without going through logic synthesis. With the unique ability of instantaneously swapping emulation states into simulation, users can debug the emulation session with their familiar simulation interface.

SE Technology Reduces Emulation Setup Time SE technology reduces emulation setup time by offering the same ease of use as simulation in a single platform without altering design methodology. Designers can switch from emulation to simulation and debug the design within their simulation environment.

SE Technology Improves Debugging
With the ability to swap an emulation state into Axis's RCC or Xsim simulation, users can emulate to find design errors, swap an emulation state into fast RCC-based simulation technology in real time and debug their emulation results all within the same environment. SE technology eliminates the need for logic analyzers, provides high-performance verification throughput and offers fast design turnaround time with the same ease of use as software simulators.

Axis' VCD-on-Demand capability has been incorporated with the SE technology to save internal state changes within the emulation session. During the debugging phase, users can specify a time range to extract emulation state history.

Verification for Design Teams
With the SE technology's capability to swap from emulation to simulation, users can run emulation to the point where design errors are detected, swap the emulation state to simulation and debug within the same session. Thus, the design team members are able to concurrently share the same system for simulation, debugging and running emulation in an office environment. This eliminates the need to debug circuitry in a lab with logic analyzers.

Availability
The first product with SE technology will ship in the third quarter of this year with a capacity of up to 20 million ASIC gates. SE technology will be demonstrated at the Design Automation Conference in June in Los Angeles. For a demonstration appointment , contact Steve Wang, 408-588-2000 x111 or send email to xcite@axiscorp.com .

About Simulation Products and Emulation Technology from Axis
Xcite takes advantage of ReConfigurable Computing (RCC) co-processors coupled with functional verification and debugging software to improve design verification and debugging throughput of up to 1000 times over software only simulation approaches. Xcite addresses behavioral, RTL and gate-level simulation and emulation for designs of up to 10 million-gates. Xcite fits directly inside or along side a Sunª Microsystems Ultra 60 workstation and connects to its PCI backplane.

Xsim is a native compiled event-driven software simulator that runs on Sun Ultra 60 and Ultra80 workstations.

SEmulation (SE) technology provides for RCC-based hardware emulation and simulation in a single easy to use platform.

About Axis Systems, Inc.
Axis Systems, Inc. is a technology leader in the verification acceleration market. Founded in 1996, the company offers breakthrough technologies for verifying electronic systems and systems-on-a-chip designs. Customers include the world's leading networking and multimedia companies. Axis is headquartered at 209 Java Drive, Sunnyvale, CA 94089, 408-588-2000, Faxes: 408-588-1662, www.axiscorp.com.

Xcite is a trademark of Axis Systems, Inc.
All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Notes to editors:Picture available on request

Acronyms
ASIC: Application Specific IC
EDA: Electronic Design Automation
IC: Integrated Circuit
RCC: ReConfigurable Computing
RTL: Register-Transfer Level or RT level
SE: SEmulation
VCD: Value-Change-Dump

Contact for inquiries:
Axis Systems, Inc., 209 Java Drive, Sunnyvale, CA 94089, 408-588-2000, FAX: 408-588-1662, xcite@axiscorp.com or visit www.axiscorp.com, Attn.: Steve Wang x 111