Synfora Announces Partnership With Leading Korean Research University; Seoul National University Deploys Synfora PICO Express for Hardware/Software Co-design and Verification.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Synfora has formed a strategic partnership with Seoul National University (SNU), one of South Korea's premier universities. Through Synfora's University Program, SNU will deploy PICO Express, Synfora's industry leading solution for C-to-RTL design and verification.

The Schools of Computer Science and Engineering and the Department of Electrical Engineering will jointly deploy PICO Express for high-level design analysis and synthesis. This is part of an advanced project for hardware and software co-design of complex applications.

"We are building a hardware/software co-design environment where application behavior is initially specified by models of computation," said Professor Soonhoi of the School of Computer Science and Engineering at SNU. "We are looking to using PICO Express to synthesize complex, multi-functional hardware blocks from C code created from the initial specification. After having considered other solutions on the market, we chose PICO Express for its scalability and proven ability to do complex applications, such as pipelines of accelerators and H.264 encoders/decoders, from C, which is critical to our project."

"By licensing PICO Express, Korea's prestigious Seoul National University will facilitate the creation of a pool of designers capable of tackling the increasingly difficult challenges of high- level SoC design for consumer applications," said Raj Singh, senior vice president of Worldwide Sales and Marketing for Synfora. "Seoul National University has strong links to industry through companies such as Samsung, and is often used as an incubator for new ideas before they are adopted by successful Korean companies."

About Seoul National University

Since its founding in 1947, Seoul National University has become an indisputable leader of higher education in Korea by virtue of distinguished and exceptionally high standards in education and research. For more information, visit http://www.snu.ac.kr.

About Synfora, Inc.

Founded in 2003, Synfora, Inc. of Mountain View, Calif. is the leading provider of application engine synthesis (AES) software used to design complex systems-on-chips (SoCs). Synfora's patented technology helps to reduce fixed design costs and dramatically speed chip development and time-to-market. Synfora targets companies in the audio, video, imaging, wireless, and security segments of the IC design market. The company's investors are ATA Ventures, Foundation Capital, and U.S. Venture Partners. For the latest news and information on Synfora, visit www.synfora.com.

Synfora and the Synfora logo are trademarks of Synfora, Inc. All other names mentioned are trademarks, registered trademarks, or service marks of their respective companies.