Matsushita Makes Strategic Shift to Analog Synthesis with Barcelona PLL Engines

Update: Barcelona has been bought by Synopsys

Barcelona to provide synthesizable PLLs for three Matsushita processes

Newark, Calif., May 5, 2003 - Barcelona Design Inc., the leading provider of analog synthesis and IP solutions, today announced that it has entered into a multiyear, multimillion-dollar agreement to supply its synthesizable PLL solutions to industry leader Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Under the terms of the agreement, Barcelona will port its Miró™ Class Clocking Engine to three Matsushita CMOS processes, including the 130 nm node, and provide the ported engines along with the Prado™ Synthesis Platform and a large number of PLL instances. This will meet the majority of Matsushita's clock generation and synchronization PLL requirements over the next several years, and enables a radical change in how Matsushita creates PLLs for its SOC projects.

Matsushita will be able to synthesize full custom PLLs in hours with the Miró™ PLL Engines, rather than performing tedious simulation-based design. "Utilization of Barcelona's clocking solution enables us to fundamentally change how we implement and support our PLL blocks, providing radically faster and more robust results, and thereby reducing time-to-market risk," said Mr. Yutaka Katabe, group manager of Matsushita's System LSI Technology Development Center. "It will have a major impact on our analog productivity, as well as the deployment of our designers to high-value projects."

"We are thrilled to have this strong endorsement of our approach from Matsushita, and look forward to working with them to help make their products even more competitive," said Thomas Heydler, president and CEO of Barcelona. "Matsushita's commitment to Barcelona's analog synthesis solutions will not only provide robust PLLs very rapidly, but will also reduce the overall cost of developing and supporting clocking circuits.""

About Barcelona Design, Inc.
Barcelona Design is the leading supplier of analog synthesis and IP solutions to semiconductor and systems companies worldwide. The company's solution consists of powerful design technology, analog intellectual property and services, and enables customers to create highly robust, product-specific analog circuits in hours rather than months. Barcelona's revolutionary synthesis technology significantly reduces design and ownership costs as well as time-to-market, and consistently improves return on IP assets for analog and mixed-signal circuits. Barcelona's solution is based on its revolutionary equation-based synthesis technology that is radically different from the simulation-based and manual methods commonly used today. The company has proven its technology with working silicon on numerous foundry and proprietary processes, and its customer include companies like Analog Devices, MediaQ, Mitsubishi and ST Microelectronics. Barcelona was founded in 1999 and has secured financing from Sequoia Capital, Foundation Capital and Crosslink Capital. The firm is headquartered in Newark, CA. For more information please visit www.barcelonadesign.com.