Monterey Design Advances Partnership With STMicroelectronics to Expand Availability of Joint Solution; Multiple 0.13u and 0.18u Design Completions Motivate Expanded Agreement.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 23, 2002

Monterey Design Systems announced today that it has signed an agreement with STMicroelectronics that would provide support of the Monterey(R) System-Driven Physical Design(TM) (SDPD) solution by ST Central R&D and the Consumer and Microcontrollers Groups in their design centers. The use of Monterey SDPD on production tape outs has delivered major benefits in terms of productivity and design capacity. ST Central R&D recently completed the first 0.13 micron design using SDPD, demonstrating the suitability of the solution for this new technology.

"The improvements in designer productivity and turnaround time that we achieved with Monterey's products were very compelling, so we decided to extend the availability of the Monterey solution to more of our customers," said Philippe Magarshack, Group Vice President for Design Automation Central R&D at STMicroelectronics. "The results that we achieved in 0.13 micron with the Monterey solution demonstrated to us the productivity gain thanks to streamlining our design flow. Based on these results, the decision to expand the use Monterey was very straightforward," continued Magarshack.

"We have seen significant value from IC Wizard, having applied Monterey tools on production designs, including a five million gate digital television controller, a cable modem, and a set-top box controller," said Jean-Marc Chateau, Director of Design, Consumer and Microcontroller Groups, STMicroelectronics. "Monterey's strengths in hierarchical design methodologies make them an ideal fit for the digital consumer chips that represent a substantial part of our product offering. Sonar, IC Wizard and Dolphin are the powerful combination enabling us to make a major productivity jump for 0.13um designs and below."

"Using the automatic floorplanning features of IC Wizard, we can create a design plan in just a few days where it used to take several weeks of manual work to develop a workable chip-level plan," said Francois Remond, Design Methodologies Manager for STMicroelectronics Set Top Box Division. "IC Wizard has become an integral part of our design flow for complex hierarchical SoC design."

"This agreement is an important milestone in Monterey's ongoing partnership with STMicroelectronics," said Maria Adolf, vice-president of European operations at Monterey. "Although we have already witnessed great benefits from ST use of Monterey products, we believe that we have barely scratched the surface and look forward to continuing our work with ST to fully realize the power of the SDPD hierarchical design solution."

About System-Driven Physical Design

The Monterey(R) System-Driven Physical Design(TM) solution is a full suite of physical design tools encompassing the entire physical flow from hierarchical design planning through tape-out. SDPD is unique in its ability to make physical information such as timing, area, and power available even at the highest system planning levels of design.

About Monterey Design Systems

Monterey Design Systems provides electronic design automation software that enables integrated circuit designers to take their circuits from completed logic design to manufacturing ready output. Built to handle the most demanding semiconductor process requirements, the company's products -- IC Wizard(TM) hierarchical design planner, Sonar(TM) physical prototyper, and Dolphin(R) physical implementation system -- combine to provide the most streamlined physical design flow on the market. Monterey Design Systems is privately held and partners with other leading EDA companies, such as Cadence (NYSE:CDN - news) and Synopsys (Nasdaq:SNPS - news), to ensure interoperability in all existing design flows. Key customers include LSI Logic, STMicroelectronics, Fujitsu Ltd., Flextronics Semiconductor, and NEC Electronics. Monterey Design Systems is located at 894 Ross Drive, Sunnyvale, CA 94089-1443, tel: [phone], fax: [phone], http://www.montereydesign.com/.

Note to Editors: Monterey and Monterey Design Systems are registered trademarks and System-Driven Physical Design is a trademark of Monterey Design Systems. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.