CARDtools Systems Enters the SOC Design Market With its High-Level Co-Design Environment.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 30, 2000

NitroVP(TM) Builds a Virtual Prototype to Simulate Hardware and Software Together and Perform Trade-Off Analysis for Embedded and SOC

Applications Early in the Design Cycle

CARDtools, Inc., an EDA and embedded SOC design company, today announced that it has significantly upgraded its virtual hardware and software prototyping environment -- NitroVP -- for the co-design (HW/SW) of SOC-based applications.

By using NitroVP designers can design and debug the software and hardware of their embedded and SOC-based systems and make trade-offs among various software and hardware options, even for designs with multiple processors, in the same environment and early in the design cycle.

NitroVP evaluates the design's architectural decisions and options, and performs simulation of the entire SOC (both hardware and software together) to identify performance bottlenecks.

Joseph Rothman, CARDtools president, noted, "Architectural tools, like NitroVP, are being accepted by leading companies, so that designers can implement and verify their embedded and SOC designs quickly and efficiently, as well as early in the design cycle. Our customers' results have proven that co-design of hardware and software, and thus evaluating hardware versus software decisions early, results in a more efficient system."

CARDtools systems was recently selected for NEC' ACE-2 program, providing the next generation design methodology for SOC designs. (See related press release earlier this month.)

NitroVP's New Features

Nitro VP now offers both timing and functional modeling and high-speed simulation of the entire SOC design, a new integrated SOC debugger, language independent modeling (e.g., C or C++) and support for multiple processors and multiple instruction set simulators (ISS). Users can select from processor options or standard real-time operating systems (RTOS) as well as model power consumption and memory usage.

Who Uses Virtual Prototyping

Embedded system developers, who are designing printers, computer peripherals or designing for various multimedia, networking and wireless applications are among the users of NitroVP.

Price and Availability

NitroVP prices start at $75,000 (USD) for Windows, Windows NT and Unix platforms. Version 6.0 ships in July.

About CARDtools

CARDtools, Inc. offers the world's first SOC Application Simulator and Virtual Design Environment. With it designers can review co-design tradeoffs, estimate software or hardware timing requirements, view buffer memory usage and obtain a general understanding of the overall design very early in the design process so problems can be detected and corrected early in the design cycle.

CARDtools Systems is located at 101 Metro Drive, Suite 250, San Jose, California 95110-1314 Tel: [phone]. For more information query [e-mail] or visit www.cardtools.com.

Notes to editors: Graphics available on request.

Reader Service Information

CARDtools Systems is located at 101 Metro Drive, Suite 250,

San Jose, California 95110-1314 Tel: [phone]. Son Baxley

or [e-mail].

Acronyms and definition

EDA: Electronic Design Automation HDL: Hardware Description Language HW/SW: Hardware/Software ISS: Instruction Set Simulator SOC: Systems-on-Chip RTOS: Real Times Operating System

NitroVP, SOC Debugger are trademarks of CARDtools Systems Corporation. All other trademarks and tradenames are the properties of their respective holders.