Synplicity to Focus On FPGA and Verification Markets.SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- Synplicity, Inc. (Nasdaq:SYNP SYNP Synchronization Profile ), a leading supplier of software for the design and verification of semiconductors, today announced a plan to re-focus its R&D investment and headcount on its strategic growth opportunities in FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) A type of gate array that is programmed in the field rather than in a semiconductor fab. Containing up to hundreds of thousands of gates, there are a variety of FPGA architectures on the market. implementation and ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) Pronounced "a-sick." A chip that is custom designed for a specific application rather than a general-purpose chip such as a microprocessor. verification. "LSI LSI: see integrated circuit. (Large Scale Integration) Between 3,000 and 100,000 transistors on a chip. See SSI, MSI, VLSI and ULSI. Logic's recent decision to withdraw their RapidChip platform ASIC product from the market prompted a reassessment of the market opportunity associated with our investments in the ASIC product line," said Gary Meyers, Synplicity's CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. and president. "The impact of their withdrawal delays the estimated time at which our ASIC software business could become profitable. While we continue to see growth potential in the structured ASIC A type of application specific IC (ASIC) chip that contains blocks of logic, called "tiles" or "modules," that have their transistors already wired together forming gates along with some combination of multiplexors, flip/flops, look up tables and the like. market, we see a greater return in our FPGA implementation, ESL (1) An earlier family of client/server development tools for Windows and OS/2 from Ardent Software (formerly VMARK). It was originally developed by Easel Corporation, which was acquired by VMARK. synthesis for DSP (1) (Digital Signal Processor) A special-purpose CPU used for digital signal processing applications (see definition #2 below). It provides ultra-fast instruction sequences, such as shift and add, and multiply and add, which are commonly used in math-intensive , and ASIC verification products," continued Meyers. "Our decision then, is to withdraw from the cell-based and structured ASIC markets while we continue to support our existing customers and honor our ongoing obligations with Fujitsu Microelectronics, LSI Logic and NEC (NEC Corporation, Tokyo, www.nec.com, www.necus.com) An electronics conglomerate known in the U.S. for its monitors. In Japan, it had the lion's share of the PC market until the late 1990s (see PC 98). NEC was founded in Tokyo in 1899 as Nippon Electric Company, Ltd. Electronics. About half of our ASIC R&D team will be re-deployed to other exciting growth opportunities." "We have an outstanding ASIC development team, and with their new focus on products such as Synplify Premier, Certify and Synplify DSP, we can accelerate our lead in these key growth markets," Meyers concluded. The plan to exit the ASIC markets includes a workforce reduction of approximately 8 percent, concentrated in the Company's Sunnyvale facility. The reduction in force is estimated to reduce the Company's annual personnel-related expenses by approximately $4.5 million per year. Severance costs and the impairment of capitalized software development costs are estimated to result in a charge to the Company of approximately $900 thousand in the March 2006 quarter. The Company will discuss this decision in more detail and will provide updated 2006 financial guidance during its upcoming Q1 2006 earnings conference call. About Synplicity Synplicity(R) Inc. (Nasdaq:SYNP) is a leading supplier of innovative software solutions that enable the rapid and effective design of Programmable Logic Devices (FPGAs, PLDs and CPLDs) that serve a wide range of communications, military/aerospace, consumer, semiconductor, computer, and other electronic systems markets. Synplicity's tools provide outstanding performance, cost and time-to-market benefits by simplifying, improving and automating key design planning, logic synthesis The conversion of a high-level electronic circuit description into a list of logic gates and their interconnections, called the "netlist." Every logic synthesis program understands some subset of Verilog and VHDL. , physical synthesis and verification functions for FPGA, FPGA-based ASIC prototyping, and DSP designers. Synplicity is the number one supplier of FPGA synthesis solutions and has been rated #1 in customer satisfaction in 2004 and 2005 in EE Times' Annual FPGA Customer Survey. Synplicity products support industry-standard design languages (VHDL (VHSIC Hardware Description Language) A hardware description language (HDL) used to design electronic systems at the component, board and system level. VHDL allows models to be developed at a very high level of abstraction. and Verilog) and run on popular platforms. The company operates in over 20 facilities worldwide and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California Sunnyvale ([sʌniveil]) is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. It is one of the major cities that make up the Silicon Valley. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 131,760. . For more information visit http://www.synplicity.com. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements including, but not limited to, statements regarding Synplicity's growth, market performance, standard of its products and operating results. These statements relate to future events and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause Synplicity's actual financial results, levels of activity, performance, achievements or market position to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. In some cases, you will be able to identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as "may," "will," "should," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "predicts," "potential," "continue", "can" or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. Forward-looking statements are only predictions and actual events or results may differ materially. Synplicity cannot provide any assurance that its future results will meet expectations. For additional information and considerations regarding the risks faced by Synplicity, see its annual report on Form 10-K Form 10-K A report required by the SEC from exchange-listed companies that provides for annual disclosure of certain financial information. Form 10-K See 10-K. for the year ended December 31, 2005, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as other periodic reports filed with the SEC from time to time. Although Synplicity believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, Synplicity cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. In addition, neither Synplicity nor any other person assumes responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of these forward-looking statements. Synplicity disclaims any obligation to update information contained in any forward-looking statement. Synplicity, Synplify and Certify are registered trademarks of Synplicity, Inc. All other brands or products are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their owners. |
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