Cynergy System Design Launches New Business Direction Focused On Embedded System Simulation and Prototyping.

Business Editors

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 25, 2000

Company to Address New Market for Collaborative Hardware and

Software Design Solutions That Accelerate Time-To-Market for SoCs

Cynergy System Design, Inc. (formerly CAE Plus) today announced its new name and business strategy. The company is focused on providing comprehensive solutions for embedded system simulation of System-On-a-Chip (SoC) and other embedded system designs. Cynergy's products support embedded developers creating software for SoCs in rapidly growing markets such as the communications, wireless, Internet infrastructure and Internet appliance markets.

Cynergy's products also meet the needs of the SoC hardware design community by providing accurate models of IP blocks for collaboration with embedded software developers early in the SoC design flow. Cynergy allows embedded developers to create Application Specific Virtual Prototypes (ASVP) for early simulation of SoC designs.

"The market for products enabling early and accurate simulation of embedded software is a rapidly emerging opportunity," stated Dr. Prem Jain, founder and CEO of Cynergy. "Our products give embedded software developers early access to clock-accurate C models of SoC designs in order to accelerate SoC development. We significantly improve the quality and performance of these designs and accelerate time-to-market for our customers' SoCs."

Emerging Embedded System Simulation Market

Traditional methods of designing SoCs have been characterized by the "software-waiting-for-hardware" dilemma that delays software simulation until the first chips are produced. The rapid growth of the SoC market and intense time-to-market pressures are driving the requirement for earlier hardware and software integration. Approaches such as logic emulation and hardware-based simulation acceleration help solve the hardware/software co-verification problem, but these approaches are usually late in the design cycle, limited in performance, and costly and difficult to maintain.

Embedded software developers need SoC simulation capability to validate their software working with the target hardware early in the design cycle. Cynergy's products fill the void created by the lack of commercial tools that meet this need. Internal programming groups often try to create this capability by hand-coding large programs known as instruction set simulators (ISS). These programs often lag the actual hardware model, due to the time required to hand-code the ISS, and are not clock-accurate. Since these programs are custom developed, supporting customers has been expensive.

Cynergy's approach accelerates SoC design flows by enabling early simulation of embedded software through the automatic generation of ASVPs for high-performance, high-accuracy simulation. The Intellectual Property (IP) protection inherent in the ASVP approach is one of the advantages offered in Cynergy's collaborative solutions.

Cynergy's Product Line

Cynergy's product line is based on patented technology, and allows the conversion of golden Register Transfer Level (RTL) designs into clock-accurate C models (RTL-C(R)). RTL-C models are programmatically synthesized by Cynergy's products. Once compiled into binary format, the RTL-C models provide Intellectual Property (IP) protection and can be distributed through a number of channels including the Internet.

Cynergy provides ArchGen(R), a graphical editor and language containing patented technology for the development and optimization of micro-architectures and automatic synthesis of both RTL-C and RTL designs. ArchGen lets users visualize the key control features of their designs and explore alternate, higher-performance micro-architectures.

The second product in Cynergy's portfolio is Afterburner(TM), which automatically converts RTL designs into RTL-C. Using Afterburner gives engineers the ability to include legacy RTL designs or RTL designs developed by third parties, in a system simulation, and it enables IP re-use by virtue of the benefits of RTL-C described above.

Cynergy's third product, ASVP Builder(TM), assembles RTL-C models, the user's embedded software application, and other third party design and debug tools into a standalone high-accuracy system model called an Application Specific Virtual Prototype (ASVP) for simulation. Once compiled, the ASVP is simulated and used to fully exercise the embedded software as it operates within the hardware model.

About Cynergy

Cynergy System Design, Inc. is the premier provider of solutions for early and accurate simulation of embedded systems to companies developing System-On-a-Chip (SoC) and other embedded system products. Cynergy's solutions reduce design iterations and accelerate time-to-market for embedded system applications. Using Cynergy's products, embedded developers can create Application Specific Virtual Prototypes (ASVP) for simulation early in the SoC design process.

Cynergy's customers include Hughes Network Systems, LSI Logic, MIPS Technologies, Motorola, Toshiba, Visteon and VxTel. Cynergy (formerly CAE Plus) is a privately held company founded by Dr. Prem Jain. The Company's investors include Broadband Venture Partners, LLC, Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector, and a major Japanese semiconductor company. Cynergy is offering its solutions through a subscription-based pricing model.

Cynergy is based in Austin, Texas, and has sales and support offices in Santa Clara. Cynergy's offices located in Noida, India provide consulting and support services to customers worldwide. For more information please call 512/338-0165, or visit our website at www.cynergysd.com.

Note to Editors: RTL-C(R) and ArchGen(R) are registered trademarks, and Afterburner(TM) and ASVP-Builder(TM) are trademarks of Cynergy System Design, Inc. (formerly CAE Plus, Inc.)

All other marks are property of their respective owners.