Henderson, Nevada, April 17, 2000 -- Aldec, Inc., a leading  supplier of HDL design entry and verification software for programmable  logic designs, announced today that it will ship FAST-Port [tm] software  for direct importing of Foundation Series projects, schematics and libraries  into the Active-HDL4.0XE (Xilinx Edition) design platform. The FAST-Port  software will allow thousands of Xilinx Foundation Series users to smoothly  migrate their mixed schematic, HDL and FSM designs to a VHDL / Verilog  based design platform. Since the design import operation is automatic,  there is no need for any manual tweaking of imported designs or associated  testbenches. The imported schematics and projects will look identical in  Active-HDL as in Foundation, simplifying continuation of project development  and facilitating Design Reuse in an HDL Centric Design Environment.  
"The Active-HDL 4.0XE product is unlike any other Xilinx third-party software tool. It is a real design productivity booster and provides engineers complete schematic Design Reuse support," stated Michael O?Brien, Product Marketing Manager at Aldec.
Why import a schematic into Active-HDL?
 Availability  
Active-HDL 4.0XE is sold directly by Aldec. The product is priced at  $2,995.00 and includes a Project Manager, HDL Editor, State Machine Editor,  Block Diagram Editor/ Schematic Editor, automatic testbench generation,  waveform viewer and editor, and the choice of a VHDL or Verilog simulation  kernel. By purchasing 4.0XE before May 31, 2000, all orders will include  the FAST-Port Foundation Project Import option (a $2,500 value) at no cost.  The first year of maintenance is included in the sale price and all licenses  sold by Aldec are permanent and non-expiring. A 100% credit can be applied  within the first 6 months towards any Active-HDL upgrade. To take advantage  of this offer, contact Aldec at 800-487-8743 or order On-line at www.aldec.com.  
 About Aldec  
Aldec has offered PC-based design entry and simulation solutions to  FPGA designers for more then 15 years. During this time, Aldec has signed  several OEM agreements with IC vendors, such as Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ:XLNX)  and Cypress Semiconductor Corp. (NYSE:CY) Aldec, Inc., headquartered in  Henderson, Nevada, produces a universal suite of Windows based EDA tools  that allow design engineers to implement their designs using several different  design entry methods (Schematic Capture, State Machine, Block Diagram,  VHDL, Verilog or ABEL). Aldec incorporates patented simulation technology  and several design entry tools to provide a complete design entry and simulation  solution. Founded in 1984, the company continues to evolve in the Windows-based  EDA market as the fastest growing privately held EDA supplier in the world.  Additional information about Aldec is available at http://www.aldec.com.