Synplicity and Xilinx Address Broadband Communications Market With DSP Design Flow; Synplicity Provides DSP-Friendly Synthesis for Xilinx DSP Design.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 4, 2000

Synplicity, Inc. (Nasdaq:SYNP), a leading supplier of software for the design and verification of semiconductors for Internet infrastructure, and Xilinx, Inc. (Nasdaq:XLNX), the world's leading supplier of programmable logic devices, today announced Synplicity's Synplify(R) synthesis products will support the Xilinx(R) XTremeDSP(TM) initiative by offering DSP designers a comprehensive solution for designing and implementing high-performance DSPs in an FPGA.

Synplicity's DSP-friendly synthesis products feature DSP-specific capabilities that enhance productivity and performance within the Xilinx XTremeDSP flow. Specific enhancements within the Synplify synthesis software include the ability to automatically infer distributed RAM and ROM, Shift Register Lookup tables (SRLs) and automatic register balancing for creating pipelined multipliers.

"Broadband communications is one of the fastest growing areas in DSP applications," said Babak Heydayati, director, marketing and business development of the IP solutions division at Xilinx. "Traditional DSPs are currently running out of steam as huge volumes of data need to be processed for applications such as HDTV and streaming video. By using Synplicity's Synplify synthesis products within our DSP design flow, our customers will have a high-performance solution specifically targeted to complex DSP designs."

"We expect to see a growing number of DSP designs being implemented in FPGAs, and expect that broadband applications will be at the forefront," said Andy Haines, vice president of marketing at Synplicity. "Synplicity is committed to providing high quality of results for DSP applications by implementing focused capabilities within the Synplify synthesis solution that are designed to specifically address the performance requirements of DSP designs being implemented in FPGAs."

The Synplify software provides additional DSP design support by increasing performance in "multiply by constant" and "sum of product" functions. This is especially useful when a designer specifies an "n-input add" function for which no core is available. In this case, the Synplify software automatically infers a highly efficient implementation of the function.

Pricing and Availability

The Synplify 6.1 synthesis products are available now from Synplicity for use with Xilinx XtremeDSP solutions. Pricing for the Synplify software starts at $9,000 (U.S.). Current customers on maintenance will be upgraded at no additional cost.

Eleven new LogiCORE(TM) DSP algorithms were released as part of the XtremeDSP initiative for implementing data communication and image processing applications, including a new filter generator, integrated with MATLAB from The MathWorks, a multipliers generator, a parameterized MAC (Multiply Accumulate), DCT/iDCT, three G.711 PCM Codec cores and four color space converters. The new LogiCORE DSP products and prices can be downloaded from the Xilinx IP-Center at http://www.xilinx.com/ipcenter.

About XtremeDSP Initiative

The Xilinx XtremeDSP initiative, announced November 21, 2000, addresses the increasing need for high-performance DSP solutions driven by the broadband revolution. The initiative marks a major commitment by Xilinx to further establish its leadership position as a high-performance DSP solutions provider. Solutions from the initiative will support over 600 billion multiply accumulates cycles (MACs) per second, more than 100 times faster than the industry's leading embedded DSP processor core. The initiative also includes new DSP features in its next-generation Virtex(TM)-II architecture, pre-engineered DSP algorithms, and enabling system-level DSP development tools.

About Xilinx

Xilinx is the leading supplier of complete programmable logic solutions, including advanced integrated circuits, software design tools, predefined system functions delivered as cores, and unparalleled field engineering support. Founded in 1984 and headquartered in San Jose, Calif., Xilinx invented the field programmable gate array (FPGA) and fulfills more than half of the world demand for these devices today. Xilinx solutions enable customers to reduce significantly the time required to develop products for the computer, peripheral, telecommunications, networking, industrial control, instrumentation, aerospace, defense, and consumer markets. For more information, visit the Xilinx web site at http://www.xilinx.com.

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). The company is located at 935 Stewart Drive, Sunnyvale, Calif. 94085. Telephone: [phone]; Fax: [phone]; E-Mail: [e-mail].

The specific features, functionality and release timing of any new products or new versions of current products remains at the sole discretion of Synplicity, Inc., and no warranty is made as to when or if specific features, functionality or releases may occur.

Synplicity and Synplify are registered trademarks of Synplicity, Inc. Xilinx is a registered trademark and XTremeDSP, LogiCORE and Virtex are trademarks of Xilinx, Inc. All other brands or products are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their owners.