Artisan Library Support for Cadence Encounter Signal Integrity Solutions Now Available for Download

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 5, 2004 -- Artisan Components, Inc. (Nasdaq:ARTI), a leading provider of physical intellectual property (IP) today announced immediate web-based availability of library support for Cadence(R) signal integrity (SI) solutions in the Encounter(R) digital IC design platform at no charge to licensed customers. This support can help customers address signal-integrity issues early in the design process and help establish a predictable path to signal-integrity sign-off.

"The wires-first approach offered in the Encounter platform, enables design teams to account for signal-integrity effects early in the design process," said Eric Filseth, vice president of marketing, digital IC implementation at Cadence Design Systems, Inc. "Our collaboration with Artisan to facilitate tool support through their proven libraries ensures a complete infrastructure is available to our customers to help design success and realize a significant time-to-market advantage."

Customers can use the signal-integrity library views provided by Artisan to help accurately assess signal and power integrity issues both during design implementation using the SoC Encounter SI closure flow and for signal integrity signoff using Cadence's CeltIC (signal integrity analyzer), SignalStorm NDC (nanometer delay calculator) and VoltageStorm PE (power integrity analyzer). The combination of these products and library views helps achieve accurate timing signoff that accounts for the combined impact of crosstalk and IR drop, both common contributors to nanometer silicon failures.

"The signal integrity library views made available as a result of our collaboration with Cadence have already helped customers in their designs," said Neal Carney, vice president of marketing at Artisan. "Providing web-based download capability further benefits our customers by facilitating easy access to library data that can help achieve successful silicon implementation."

Artisan's library support for Cadence SI models can now be downloaded from Artisan's website at www.artisan.com.

About Artisan Components

Artisan Components, Inc. is a leading provider of physical intellectual property (IP) components for the design and manufacture of complex system-on-a-chip integrated circuits. Artisan's products include embedded memory, standard cell, input/output, analog and mixed-signal components, which are designed to achieve the best combination of performance, density, power and yield. Artisan has licensed its IP components to over a thousand companies involved in integrated circuit design. Artisan is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. More information about Artisan Components, including free library access, can be found at www.artisan.com.

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements including, but not limited to, statements regarding the performance of Artisan's library products and Cadence's signal integrity (SI) solutions, the benefits and advantages to IC design teams of using such products and the impact of such products on the successful implementation of IC designs. These statements are only predictions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially, including volatility in the market for integrated circuits, SoCs and IP components, technical or other difficulties that delay or prevent delivery of Artisan's library products or Cadence's SI solutions, technical or other difficulties in the operation or integration of such products or the use of such products in conjunction with other products or designs, the performance and quality of such products relative to other IP components, the acceptance of such products by existing and new customers and the growth and changing technical requirements of the IP component market. For additional information and considerations regarding the risks faced by Artisan, see its annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended September 30, 2003 as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as other periodic reports filed with the SEC from time to time, including its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. For additional information and considerations regarding the risks faced by Cadence, see its annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 28, 2002 as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as other periodic reports filed with the SEC from time to time, including its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q.

Artisan Components and Artisan are registered trademarks of Artisan Components, Inc.

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SOURCE: Artisan Components, Inc.