Circuit Semantics Appoints Avant Technologies as Distributor for Taiwan and China; Avant Technologies Provides Strong Focus on EDA Solution Sales.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 7, 2002

Circuit Semantics(TM), Inc., the leading provider of timing and characterization solutions for high-performance IC design, today announced the appointment of Avant Technologies Inc. as the exclusive distributor for Taiwan and China. This new Far Eastern distributor ensures that there is worldwide sales and support for Circuit Semantics' suite of cell and macro block characterization, and static timing analysis solutions that are needed by IC designers because they reduce the design cycle of today's large, high performance designs. The suite of tools, with the major enhancements added to the core technology in the December 2001 release, deliver the new functionality demanded by foundries such as TSMC, UMC and Chartered Semiconductor, as well as the new state of the art foundries being built in China.

"As the semiconductor and systems business recovers in Taiwan and the rest of Asia, our timing and characterization solutions will provide the new technology needed to help fuel the recovery in the number of high performance semiconductor designs that can go to fabrication in a short period of time," said Gary Larsen, president and CEO of Circuit Semantics. "After investigating other distributors, we concluded that Avant was the best choice. From our perspective, the staff at Avant is the best-trained, most motivated and most focused on selling EDA solutions into Taiwan and China."

"We have chosen to become Circuit Semantics' distributor in both Taiwan and China because they have the best solution for static timing analysis at both the block and SoC level and the best solution for both cell and macro block characterization," said Bing-Ling Fan, president and CEO of Avant. "The support that CSI offers was an important consideration. We were very impressed with the high quality of training they provide for distributors, the speed with which they respond to questions and inquiries, and the technical expertise of their staff. Because we are also the distributor for Sagantec, we can now develop a combined solution for design migration and characterization. CSI's tool suite is comprised of DynaCell(TM), DynaCore(TM), DynaModel(TM), and DynaTest(TM), an option to DynaModel and each play an important role in the design of very high performance digital ICs used in industries such as telecommunications, computers, graphics image rendering, and digital signal processing."

Beginning in January and throughout 2002, Circuit Semantics will be increasing the resources available to Taiwan and the rest of Asia. According to Arnie Becker, director of rest of Asia sales for Circuit Semantics, "we will be making a concerted effort to deliver tools and information to the foundries and the systems houses developing high performance, full and structured custom SoC design of microprocessors, DSP, graphics processors, and other devices."

In addition to functioning as a distributor for Circuit Semantics, Avant Technologies uses their suite of EDA tools to provide netlist to silicon design services for system or design houses that do not have staff design engineers, tools and experience to implement physical IC design. ATI's services include full custom layout with place and route, and the design of cell libraries, random logic, gate-arrays, memories, and analog mixed signal ICs. Avant provides a wide range of libraries including 0.25um, 0.35um, 0.5um, 0.6um and gate array libraries. Support is available for most of the major foundries in both Taiwan and China. As part of its design services Avant provides library, logic block, memory, IP and chip process migration from one process to another process, or from one foundry to another foundry.

About Circuit Semantics

Circuit Semantics, Inc. provides timing and characterization solutions for high performance cells, cores, and blocks based on innovative technology for which patents are currently pending. IC designers employ these mixed-level solutions to create high-performance chips using full-custom and structured-custom methodologies. The company's products support precise, gate-level abstraction of transistor-level circuits to accelerate timing closure for designs fabricated in deep submicron (DSM) process technologies. These solutions are especially well suited for the microprocessor, digital signal processing, graphics and the high-speed communications markets. Circuit Semantics is headquartered at 2590 North First Street, Suite 301, San Jose, California 95131, telephone [phone]; fax [phone]. For more information, visit www.circuitsemantics.com.

About Avant Technologies Inc.

Avant Technology Inc. (ATI) was founded in 1990 and focuses on two major business areas: EDA distribution and design services. Its mission is to shorten time to market, provide better quality design services, turn-key solutions and lower the final costs for customers. ATI understands all aspects of EDA including front-end design tools, back-end test and verification and the manufacturing process. This is due in large measure to the fact that most of the ATI engineers come from semiconductor industry. In addition to Circuit Semantics, ATI now represents IntelliSense, Interra, K2, PineBush, Sagantec, Tanner and TransEDA. Avant Technology is headquartered at 5F, No. 3 Lane, Puding Road, Hsinchu City, Taiwan. Telephone [phone], fax: [phone]. For more information visit www.avant.com.