Esterel Technologies Announces SCADE Drive 5.0; SCADE Drive 5.0: The Fastest Road to Automotive Software Safety.

MUNICH, Germany -- Esterel Technologies, a leading worldwide supplier of model-based design, validation, and code generation tools for safety-critical software applications, today announced the newest version of its SCADE Drive(TM) product, specifically aimed at the automotive market.

"SCADE Drive 5.0 has been designed to reduce automotive software development costs as well as electronics equipment series costs, while achieving the highest levels of safety," said Eric Bantegnie, President and CEO of Esterel Technologies SA.

The SCADE Drive 5.0 Code Generator KCG 4.2 has just received a product certificate by TUV Automotive GmbH, TUV SUD Group, according to the IEC 61508 standard, a worldwide "premiere" for a software development tool. Assessments by TUV Automotive GmbH guarantee supreme quality throughout all technical fields, under the flag of the strong brand, TUV SUD Group.

This IEC Certification of SCADE Drive 5.0 Code Generator KCG 4.2 eliminates the need for unit testing for SCADE block diagrams, thus enabling fast and safe implementation of design updates.

"SCADE users have seen a reduction of as much as 70 to 90% in the costs of coding, unit testing, and performing code reviews, as well as a reduction by a factor of three to four in the time needed to carry out the effective and verified implementation of specifications changes," added Bantegnie.

The SCADE Drive 5.0 formal verification tool, Design Verifier(TM), enables the capture and verification of system-level properties and the detection of bugs earlier in the design process, eliminating many late-stage integration testing activities.

SCADE Drive 5.0 also enables automotive electronics systems designers to reduce the "series" costs of production by meeting extremely demanding code size footprint and speed requirements.

Using SCADE Drive 5.0 permits the tailoring and optimization of code generation for each target, while keeping software models unchanged; as a result, retargeting a given function onto new target processors (8 bits, 16 bits, or 32 bits) becomes a much easier task. Double simulation and formal verification can be used to track overflows, underflows, and numerical resolution effects. Target-specific information is stored in an organized and reusable fashion, saving extremely valuable expertise in code size optimization across projects.

SCADE Drive(TM) 5.0 also natively supports major Real Time Operating Systems (RTOSs), including VxWorks(R) and OSEK(R).

SCADE Drive 5.0 is very easy to integrate with existing design environments, featuring:

--a powerful Simulink(R)/Stateflow(R) import/export gateway,

--a link with the DOORS(R) Requirements Management environment,

--a gateway with all Microsoft(R) SCCI-Compliant Configuration Management tools,

--a gateway with the Altia(R) graphical design environment,

--and the support of leading bus architectures such as CAN(R), Flexray(R), and TTA(R).

SCADE Drive 5.0 is available in a floating LAN configuration and runs on Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. Perpetual and Time-Based Licensing schemes are also available.

About Esterel Technologies

Esterel Technologies' tools create unambiguous specifications that produce correct-by-construction, automated implementation in software and/or hardware. Today, SCADE Suite(TM) is the standard for the creation of RTCA DO-178B, EUROCAE ED-12B, and IEC 61508 safety-critical embedded software in the civilian avionics and transportation industries; SCADE Drive(TM) is the emerging standard for the creation of safety-critical embedded software in the automotive industry. Esterel Studio(TM) enables electronics hardware designers to create golden specification models that can be automatically implemented in RTL or C.

Esterel Technologies is a privately held company with headquarters in Mountain View, California, USA, and Elancourt, France, with direct sales offices in Germany, the United Kingdom, and China. For additional information, visit the Esterel Technologies website at www.esterel-technologies.com.

SCADE Drive(TM), SCADE Suite(TM), Esterel Studio(TM) and Design Verifier(TM) are trademarks of Esterel Technologies. Design Verifier(TM) is based on the Prover Plug-In(TM), a trademark of Prover Technology AB in Sweden, the United States, and in other countries. Simulink(R) and Stateflow(R) are registered trademarks of The MathWorks, Inc. DOORS(R) is a registered trademark of Telelogic AB. VxWorks is a registered trademark of Wind River Systems. Other product or brand names are trademarks of their respective companies.