CoWare and Sonics Release ESL 2.0 Upgrade of Joint Flow

Sonics SMART Interconnect Integration with CoWare ESL 2.0 Solution Provides Faster Time-to-Market for Production Designs

SAN JOSE, Calif. & MILPITAS, Calif.-- March 26, 2008 -- CoWare® Inc., the leading supplier of platform-driven electronic system-level (ESL) design software and services and Sonics Inc., a premier supplier of system-on-chip (SoC) SMART Interconnect™ solutions, announced availability of the ESL 2.0 upgrade of their joint flow. The integration provides designers a single flow with advanced debugging and analysis capabilities for platform architecture design and platform verification using Sonics SMART interconnection solutions.

Semiconductor companies are faced with new design challenges caused by the transition from single application systems to multi-application systems. In particular, local memory sub-systems are replaced with complex memory hierarchies, local, shared buses are replaced with intelligent interconnects (NoCs) and single processor IP is replaced by larger, multi-processors/ cores and interconnect IP. The collaboration between Sonics and CoWare addresses this growing trend by enabling the intelligent interconnect and complex memory modeling capabilities accessible through the SonicsStudio™ development environment to seamlessly interoperate with the system modeling capabilities of CoWare Platform Architect.

TLM platform capture and analysis can now be executed by utilizing the SonicsStudio development environment for managing the detailed configuration of the Sonics models and through direct links with CoWare Platform Architect, include multiple processor models and other IP to perform system level capture and analysis using CoWare Platform Architect.

“As multi-core SoC architectures have become mainstream, it is imperative that system level design capture and analysis be available so that these architectures can be deployed rapidly,” said Phil Casini, vice president of marketing and business development at Sonics Inc. “Since the interconnect is at the heart of the multi-core SoC architecture, seamless interoperability between SonicsStudio and CoWare Platform Architect creates a comprehensive system level development environment that facilitates rapid development and deployment.”

“Today’s high-performance consumer SoCs demand increasingly intelligent IP to account for the convergence of applications on a single device,” said Dr. Johannes Stahl, vice president of marketing and business development at CoWare Inc. “The joint flow with Sonics provides the industry-leading solution to address the need for intelligent interconnects and memory sub-systems design and validation.”

CoWare-Sonics Joint Flow

CoWare and Sonics have created a unique flow that leverages the strengths of CoWare Platform Architect and SonicsStudio to create platform models based on Sonics SMART Interconnect solutions. The integration implementation has been driven by customer design requirements. It addresses the needs of architects that want to explore and optimize the highly-configurable interconnect and memory sub-system solutions offered by Sonics. Benefits of the joint solution include:

• Single user interface configuration principle
• CoWare Platform Architect is used to create and configure the platform; resulting in the ability to get a high-level overview of the entire platform which helps ease architecture decisions
• SonicsStudio is used to configure the extensive set of Sonics IP parameters; resulting in consistency checking that eases Sonics IP optimization
• Advanced SystemC debug features enable designers to reach product goals quicker
• SonicsMX™ and Sonics MemMax® analysis for rapid interconnect architecture optimization and MemMax QoS optimization

Availability

The Sonics-CoWare ESL2.0 solution for Sonics SMART Interconnects is available now from CoWare. As part of this solution, CoWare distributes an ESL version of SonicsStudio. To create Verilog RTL, the configuration data developed in the ESL 2.0 CoWare Platform Architect/SonicsStudio environment can be reused in the SonicsStudio version available from Sonics.

About Sonics

Sonics Inc. is a premier supplier of SMART Interconnect solutions that deliver high SoC design predictability and increased design efficiency. Major semiconductor and systems companies including Broadcom, Samsung, Texas Instruments and Toshiba have applied Sonics’ SMART Interconnect solutions in leading products in the wireless, digital multimedia and communications markets. Sonics is a privately-held company funded by Cadence Design Systems, Toshiba Corporation, Samsung Ventures and venture capital firms Investar Capital, TL Ventures, Smart Technology Ventures, and Easton Hunt Capital, among others. For more information, see www.sonicsinc.com.

About CoWare

CoWare is the leading global supplier of platform-driven electronic system-level (ESL) design software and services. IP, semiconductor, and electronics companies use CoWare ESL 2.0 solutions to design better processor- and software-intensive products faster. CoWare solutions solve the new design challenges associated with platform architecture design, platform verification, application sub-system design, processor design, DSP algorithm design, and software development, and are based on open industry standards including SystemC. These solutions also enable IP and semiconductor companies to implement more effective go-to-market strategies. CoWare’s corporate investors include ARM [(LSE: ARM - News); (NASDAQ: ARMHY - News)], Cadence Design Systems (NASDAQ: CDNS - News), STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM - News), and Sony Corporation (NYSE: SNE - News). CoWare is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., and has offices around the world. For more information about CoWare and its products and services visit www.coware.com.