DAFCA Appoints New Board Member, Expands Management Team; EDA Industry Veterans Round Out Management Team; Semiconductor Industry Leader Jacques Noels Joins Board to Lend Strategic Guidance.

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. -- DAFCA Inc., a provider of electronic design automation (EDA) software tools that enable rapid debug and faster time-to-volume of sophisticated SoCs, today announced a key addition to the company's Board of Directors and the successful recruitment of its expanded management team. These leadership additions will support DAFCA's product development, strategic positioning and technology partnership initiatives and build the foundation for market leadership.

Jacques Noels Brings Semiconductor Industry Leadership Experience to Board

Jacques Noels, formerly CEO of Thomson Semiconductors and instrumental in the creation of STMicroelectronics, has joined DAFCA's Board of Directors. Subsequent to Thomson, Noels served as President and CEO of Nokia Consumer Electronics Products and later as President of Zenith Data Systems.

"Growth in the semiconductor industry is ultimately contingent on design implementation capability," said Noels. "The plague of low yield inhibits the industry from distinguishing between systemic manufacturing defects and design errors. Everyone recognizes that the gap between specification and post-silicon debug is the next frontier, and I am excited to be part of a world-class team that is focusing on the most critical problem in design automation."

EDA Industry Veterans Recruited to Complete Management Team

DAFCA rounds out its management team with the appointment of EDA industry veterans Dave Orecchio to Vice President of Product Marketing, Dave Miller to Vice President of Engineering, and Gerard Memmi to Chief Software Architect.

Dave Orecchio's 22 years of experience includes marketing, sales, and operations management roles in the EDA and semiconductor industries. He was a senior executive at Viewlogic (later Synopsys and Innoveda) where he was instrumental in establishing the company's leadership position as an ASIC tool provider. While responsible for product marketing, he defined and implemented strategic initiatives including technology acquisitions and strategic partnerships. Prior to Viewlogic, he managed a communications test business unit at LTX Corporation that achieved a dominant position in the semiconductor test market. Prior to joining DAFCA, Orecchio was the Senior Vice President of Product Management for Parametric Technology Corporation's (PTC's) Windchill product lifecycle management product line.

Dave Miller joins DAFCA with over 22 years of electronic product and software development experience. Miller led development teams at Lucent Technologies (AT&T Bell Laboratories), in the areas of microelectronics EDA, interactive video, and wireless products and services. As a distinguished member of the technical staff, Miller developed electronic design automation products that were used both inside and outside of AT&T Bell Labs.

Gerard Memmi brings over 20 years software industry experience to DAFCA. Earlier, Memmi served as chief technology officer at Chrysalis Symbolic Design Inc. (later Avant!, then Synopsys) where he was responsible for bringing new technologies and algorithms into the company, as well as working with academia to foster two-way communications between leading research centers and Chrysalis's engineering organization. Prior to Chysalis, Memmi was a professor at Ecole Nationale Superieure des Telecommunications, Paris, France and served as Principal Investigator for a DARPA grant on collaborative software while with Groupe Bull HN.

"Each of these individuals has been instrumental in building early-stage EDA and semiconductor companies into highly successful, hundred-million dollar enterprises," said Peter Levin, CEO of DAFCA. "Our ability to attract these technology leaders and innovators is a key indicator of our value proposition and future success. Their extensive industry experience and technical expertise will accelerate our product development, strategic positioning and technology partnership initiatives. This team will accomplish our mission of obtaining the high ground in the rapidly emerging market for SoC design tools."

Editor's Note: For photos of DAFCA personnel mentioned in this release, please contact Vicki Sakakeeny of Boldbrook Marketing at [e-mail] or [phone].

About DAFCA

DAFCA is an electronic design automation (EDA) software company developing a product suite for the creation of flexible Systems-on-Chip (SoC) solutions, which results in faster time-to-market and lower chip development costs. The first supported applications for the DAFCA technology are silicon debug, error corrections, and ECOs. This unique technology enables chip designers to rapidly achieve working silicon and significantly reduces the time-to-market of their devices. Learn more about the company by visiting their web site at http://www.dafca.com.