Synplicity's Certify Product Makes EDN Magazine's `Hot 100 Products' Honor Roll.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 19, 2000

Synplicity, Inc. (Nasdaq:SYNP), a leading supplier of software for the design and verification of semiconductors for Internet infrastructure, today announced that its Certify(TM) 3.0 register transfer level (RTL) prototyping tool has been selected by EDN Magazine as one of the Hot 100 Products of 2000. EDN editors review thousands of products in dozens of categories before identifying the products chosen for the Hot 100 list.

"We selected the Certify 3.0 software as one of the hot products of 2000 because it offers a novel RTL prototyping solution for ASIC and SoC designers," said Gabe Moretti, technical editor at EDN Magazine. "With the Certify product, Synplicity has built upon its innovative FPGA synthesis technology to provide a systems approach to ASIC verification and prototyping -- one of today's most important and challenging areas of design."

Andy Haines, vice president of marketing for Synplicity, added, "We developed the Certify product to speed time-to-silicon for ASIC and SoC designers through quick and easy FPGA-based prototype development. We are pleased that the product has generated such a positive response from the design community, and are encouraged by EDN's validation of the need for this innovative software approach to today's design verification challenges."

In choosing the Certify product, EDN Magazine specifically highlighted the product's ability to automatically translate gated clocks from the ASIC design to "clock enables" in the FPGA. Using this feature, a developer can design an ASIC prototype without regard for the target FPGA architecture or its clock resources. The Certify product automatically translates each gated ASIC clock to an FPGA clock enable, which allows the clock to turn on without having to go through a gate in the design. The list of the Hot 100 Products of 2000 appears in EDN's December 7, 2000 issue and can also be read on EDN's Web site: http://www.ednmag.com/ednmag/reg/2000/12072000/25cs.htm.

About the Certify Product

Leveraging Synplicity's core synthesis and partitioning technologies, the Certify prototyping tool allows designers to create functional hardware prototypes of their design prior to ASIC synthesis. This approach enables higher performance and productivity than gate-level partitioning approaches, which require multiple iterations to achieve a suitable partitioning of the devices, and also enables faster time-to-market, especially for the one-million-gate-plus ASIC/SoC designs used for multimedia and communications applications. The Certify software also enables extensive verification that previously could not be performed at the RT level without weeks of manual effort and modification of the RTL code. The creation of a functional hardware prototype at the RT level enables ASIC designers to perform the following tasks at- or near-system speed: hardware/software co-verification; algorithm development and verification; verification of intellectual property, either cores or library elements; system software development and debugging, verification of system-level protocol compatibility and early system/product development with FPGAs.

About Synplicity

Synplicity, Inc. (Nasdaq:SYNP) is a leading provider of software products that enable the rapid and effective design and verification of semiconductors used in Internet infrastructure hardware and other electronic devices. The company leverages its innovative logic synthesis, physical synthesis and verification software solutions to improve performance and shorten development time for complex programmable logic devices, application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and system-on-chip (SoC) integrated circuits. Synplicity's fast, easy-to-use, affordable products offer extremely high quality of results, support industry-standard design languages (VHDL and Verilog) and run on popular platforms (Windows 98/2000, Windows NT and UNIX). Synplicity is located at 935 Stewart Drive, Sunnyvale, Calif., 94086. Telephone: [phone]; Fax: [phone]; E-Mail: [e-mail].

Note to Editors: Synplicity is a registered trademark of Synplicity, Inc. Certify is a trademark of Synplicity. All other brands or products are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their owners.