Polaris Design Acquires ASIC/SoC Prototyping Business of IRIS Technologies and Appoints PROTOtyping Japan as Its Exclusive Japan Distributor

Delivers first revenue shipment to a large Japanese industrial conglomerate

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Mar 20, 2012 -- Polaris Design Systems, Inc., a newly established Silicon Valley company that focuses on high performance, hardware-enabled semiconductor verification solutions, has acquired the ASIC/SoC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit/System on Chip) prototyping assets of IRIS Technologies, Inc. IRIS developed and marketed multiple generations of Altera  FPGA-based ASIC prototyping solutions since 2006. Polaris Design Systems will continue to engineer, market and support the Altera Stratix family of ASIC/SoC prototyping solutions.

“I am thrilled at the opportunity to offer a compelling solution to the SoC designers,” said Rahm Shastry, Chairman and CEO of Polaris Design Systems. “As more and more SoC designs engage in integration of pre-existing design IPs, it is imperative that it be thoroughly verified prior to a chip tape out -- including running application-level software on the stitched RTL code so as to identify and fix corner-case and functional level defects in their implementation. Software simulators cannot handle the complexity and are excruciatingly slow, while the traditional, big-box, hardware emulation platform is expensive and difficult to use. Our standards-based, Altera FPGA-based ASIC/SoC prototyping products offer a sweet spot with its compelling, price/performance metrics. We recently delivered our first revenue shipment to a large Japanese industrial conglomerate, who was a repeat customer of IRIS.”

Polaris Design Systems also announces the appointment of PROTOtyping Japan as its exclusive distributor in Japan. “PROTOtyping Japan has been a leading distributor of ASIC prototyping solutions to the semiconductor industry starting with Hardi Electronics, which is now part of Synopsys. We are pleased to partner with them as our exclusive distributor in Japan,” remarked Shastry.

“We have successfully sold and supported IRIS’ ASIC prototyping solutions since 2009. We have known Rahm-san for a long time, and we are very pleased that Polaris Design Systems will continue to support our Japan customers with innovative, high-performance prototyping solutions,” said Mr. Noriyuki Sasaki, President and CEO of PROTOtyping Japan.

About Polaris Design Systems

Polaris Design Systems focuses on high performance, hardware-enabled functional verification solutions to the global electronics market with software, intellectual property (IP), and services for semiconductor design verification. The company’s solutions help address some of the key verification challenges that designers face today, such as silicon verification and time-to-market. Its leading-edge FPGA-based solutions offer customers a competitive edge in bringing their best products to market quickly, while reducing cost and schedule risk.

Polaris Design Systems is located at 2953 Bunker Hill Lane #400 in Santa Clara, California, Visit Polaris Design Systems at http://www.polaris-ds.com/

About PROTOtying Japan

PROTOtyping Japan was established in 2003 to sell, support, and service hardware-based engineering design projects for the Japanese semiconductor companies. In addition to Polaris Design Systems, PROTOtyping Japan distributes solutions from Temento Systems SA, Terasic Technologies, Inc., HDLWorks BV, Samtec Inc., CAST Inc., Bitec Ltd., Wiznet Inc., OrangeTree Technologies and S2C Inc. Their customers consist of leading Japan-based electronic and semiconductor companies and universities.

PROTOtyping Japan is headquartered in Shin-Yokohama Japan. Visit PROTOtyping Japan at http://www.prototyping-japan.com/