Integrated Measurement System's Engineering Solutions Are Enabling Fabless Company Successes with Advanced IC Designs.

Business Editors, High-Tech Writers

BEAVERTON, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 8, 2001

IMS engineering analysis solutions are providing fabless companies

with in-house capabilities to quickly validate complex, high

performance integrated circuit designs

Integrated Measurement Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:IMSC), announced today that it continues to see strong product sales in the fast-growing worldwide fabless semiconductor industry.

Wins by IMS include fabless startups Sandcraft(TM) and Transmeta(TM) in the Silicon Valley, Centerpoint Broadband(TM) in San Diego, Navarro Networks(TM) in Texas, and Element 14(TM) in the United Kingdom.

Fabless companies, of which there are an estimated 800 plus worldwide, are design-only IC developers who have no onsite wafer fabrication capabilities, using outsource foundries for this purpose. Two types of fabless enterprises exist today: System manufacturers with in-house ASIC groups such as the Boeing Corporation(TM) and complex chip vendors such as Transmeta and Navarro Networks.

"Fabless semiconductor manufacturers offer tremendous opportunities for IMS," commented Jack Frost, General Manager, SoC Division. "IMS products such as the Vanguard(TM) Logic IC Validation System recently installed at Navarro Networks, and Digital VirtualTester(TM) an IMS Virtual Test Division product supporting new IC designs at Element 14, provide an ideal engineering solution for fabless companies who want to develop products quickly, cost-effectively and with greater quality control."

Fabless Companies Use Onsite Engineering Validation Tools To Speed Development.

In many cases, fabless houses turn to their foundries to debug new designs at first silicon using expensive production ATE systems. However, fabless companies are discovering the benefits of having engineering analysis systems available onsite, in their own engineering design labs, to get them to market faster. The ability to quickly design and analyze products at a lower cost afford these independent firms the opportunity to be first to market and thus more competitive and profitable.

The Fabless Model Is Changing In Two Significant Ways.

Small companies can now afford in-house IC analysis and no longer need to be test-less or depend on the availability of production ATE's at their foundries. At the same time, even large enterprises like Lucent Technologies(TM) and Texas Instruments(TM) are outsourcing fabrication of their new products to reduce costly in-house fabrication.

Complex Designs Require Sophisticated Engineering Analysis.

Navarro Networks in Plano, Texas designs complex, high-performance VLSI integrated circuits that enable the networking industry to attain new levels of network processing performance by combining custom circuit design techniques with aggressive processor architectures. An IMS Vanguard Logic IC Validation system utilized by Navarro's team of design engineers is assisting the company in developing leading edge network designs.

According to Mark Bluhm, President and CEO of Navarro Networks, bringing an engineering validation system onsite has proven successful for their business model. He states, "As a fabless semiconductor design company we face many unique challenges. We need verification tools that generate results in real time. We need to quickly verify silicon performance and implement design improvements. To meet the market introduction timelines of our technology partners, an on-site engineering validation system is one of the primary solutions to help us meet these demands. Based upon our previous success with IMS, and compared to other tester solutions, we felt the IMS Vanguard IC validation system offers us the ease of use, performance, portability and price to fit all of our goals."

Transmeta, a fabless semiconductor manufacturer developing platform solutions for Mobile Internet Computing, in Santa Clara, California relates a similar story with their X86 Crusoe(TM) processor using an IMS digital validation system.

"Transmeta's breakthrough technology for low power, high performance processors, embodied in the Crusoe chip, is crucial to our vision for true portability in mobile Internet computing," comments Mark K. Allen, President and Chief Executive Officer. The IMS validation system proved to be an invaluable tool for Crusoe design debug and for validation of design criteria, helping Transmeta to meet critical market release timelines. The IMS system is used daily in our engineering laboratory by the Crusoe design team, and truly is considered an integral part of our operations. We expect the IMS system to play a pivotal role in the development of next generation Crusoe processors and for newer designs on the drawing boards.

Fabless Model Growing in Importance As Fabrication Costs and IC Complexity Increase.

As the cost of designing and constructing new fabrication facilities becomes prohibitive, even for the world's largest Integrated Device Manufacturers (IDMs), on-site device validation capabilities are growing in importance. Complex designs, coupled with outsourced cores for systems-on-chip are focusing more attention on the need for onsite engineering validation capabilities.

Don Grant, IMS President and Chief Operating Officer, comments that: "Many fabless enterprises are at the forefront of the consumer-driven world wide growth in wireless, multimedia and Internet communications. They are the very firms who must quickly and economically implement state-of-the-art single chip system solutions (SoC's) that will power tomorrow's devices. IMS is pleased to be able to offer these firms the tools they need in their engineering labs to effectively and economically debug and prove their designs."

About Integrated Measurement Systems, Inc.

Integrated Measurement Systems designs and markets a diverse product line of engineering validation systems for the debug and validation of memory, logic and mixed-signal complex, high performance ICs and SoCs. IMS's Virtual Test(TM) Division is the preferred supplier of innovative software products that enhance design-to-production test productivity during pre-silicon IC development.

(TM) The IMS name and logo, Vanguard, Digital VirtualTester and Virtual Test are trademarks of Integrated Measurement Systems, Inc.

(TM) Sandcraft, Transmeta, Lucent Technologies, Texas Instruments, Crusoe, Centerpoint Broadband, Element 14, Navarro Networks and The Boeing Corporation are trademarks of their respective companies.

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