Athena Design Appoints DSM Solutions as Exclusive Japan Sales Representative.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Athena Design Systems, Inc., electronic design automation (EDA) start-up focused on critical implementation issues in physical IC design, today announced Direct Sales and Marketing (DSM) Solutions Corporation as its exclusive sales representative in Japan. Led by Shinji Iyobe, a seasoned EDA sales and marketing executive, DSM Solutions is widely recognized as a leading Japanese sales and marketing firm for EDA products with the reputation for building strong customer relationships and delivering compelling new EDA tools to the Japanese market.

"DSM Solutions brings qualifications that are well-suited for where we are in our company's evolution. As a proven top performer, DSM Solutions has an ideal combination of strategic selling expertise and experience in bringing a new company and its products to the market," said John Murphy, CEO of Athena Design. "DSM Solutions' approach of providing excellent service to end users of our technology and products will be invaluable as we build strategic relationships with key corporations and introduce our products to the Japanese market."

"The opportunity for Athena is an ideal one when you consider the convergence of IC design and implementation issues that leading-edge semiconductor companies are facing, particularly at the 65 nanometer and smaller silicon process nodes. The company's vision and technology address a real need and bring true innovation to this area," said Shinji Iyobe, founder of DSM Solutions. "The fact that Athena Design already has sold products to Japanese-based corporations gives the extension of sales and marketing into Japan a great jumpstart and will be instrumental in our go-to-market strategy. I look forward to playing a role in re-shaping the IC design landscape with this breakthrough technology."

Athena Design expects to change the way designs are implemented with the IC industry's first "meta routing optimization system" that accelerates the path to timing-driven design closure with higher quality of results and lower development costs. The company's concurrent analysis and optimization approach provides a central point of control to rapidly explore design feasibility, optimize physical layout, and simultaneously evaluate changes across multiple process corners and operational modes. The system utilizes a proprietary distributed multi-processing platform that is architected to execute EDA applications at extreme speeds.

About Athena Design

Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Athena Design Systems, Inc. develops and markets design optimization tools that address the physical implementation challenges of complex nanometer chip design. The company's products accelerate the productivity of engineers, design tools and computing resources enabling chip companies to reach design closure faster with higher quality of results and lower development costs. For more information about Athena Design, visit www.athenadesign.com.

About DSM Solutions

Headquartered in Tokyo, DSM Solutions Corporation was established in 2006. The main members have actual results, know-how and customer relations spanning over 20 years, for each generation of Emerging EDA tools and technology relating to EDA Distributors. Its founder Shinji Iyobe spent more than 20 years at Itochu Techno Science where he served as General Manager of Sales for a variety of EDA product lines and IT infrastructure for EDA. For more information about DSM Solutions, visit www.dsmint.com.