NVIDIA Leverages Denali for PCI Express Design Verification

PALO ALTO, Calif., August 19, 2003--Denali Software, Inc., the leading provider of electronic design automation (EDA) tools and intellectual property (IP) for chip interface design and verification, today announced that NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA) has signed a multi-year agreement to license Denali's verification tools for use in its chip design efforts. NVIDIA engineers are now using Denali's PureSpec(TM) product to verify the correct operation of the PCI Express interface in its chip designs. The tool helps NVIDIA engineers catch potential bugs early in the development cycle before the design is implemented in silicon.

The PCI Express architecture is a new serial interconnect technology that replaces the current AGP standard in motherboards for the next generation of graphics applications. PCI Express significantly increases bandwidth between the central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) by enabling a balanced distribution of bandwidth to those applications that require it the most.

"NVIDIA is dedicated to delivering the highest quality products for our customers. PCI Express is a key technology for our next-generation GPUs and we've developed a very sophisticated verification environment to ensure the quality of this new interface," said Gopal Solanki, vice president of hardware engineering at NVIDIA. "Denali's reputation for verifying memory interfaces allowed us the opportunity to look at their product for PCI Express verification. As we evaluated PureSpec, we knew we had a winner when it caught a number of bugs that went undetected using other methods. We continue to be impressed by the tool's performance, and we have incorporated it into our overall verification methodology for our PCI Express interfaces."

"What NVIDIA is doing with graphics processing technology is truly amazing," said Denali vice president of marketing Kevin Silver. "They consistently push the envelope in terms of design and verification technology, and they do it successfully under tremendous time-to-market pressures. With PureSpec, Denali is providing NVIDIA with best-in-class solution for both verifying their PCI Express interface and ensuring interoperability with other chips using the PCI Express standard. PureSpec is being used in the vast majority of the current PCI Express chip design efforts, and our unique ability to enable pre-silicon interoperability verification is a key value to NVIDIA and the PCI Express community in general."

About PureSpec
PureSpec is a verification IP product used by chip designers to simulate, and verify PCI Express design interfaces. PureSpec models all devices in the PCI Express topology, including the root complex, switch, endpoint, and PCI Express to PCI bridge. Within PureSpec, all protocol layers (physical, data link, transaction) of the PCI Express specification are completely modeled and can be simulated simultaneously or used separately. The product contains thousands of assertions that are monitored during simulation to ensure compliance with the PCI Express specification, and interoperability with other PCI Express devices. Injected errors and error conditions are also flagged and recovered according to PCI Express specifications. The PureSpec product is built on the proven product architecture of Denali's MMAV product, which has been used to verify complex memory interfaces for thousands of successful designs, and provides seamless integrations to all popular EDA tools and verification languages. Proven product platform, dedicated customer support, and unmatched EDA modeling and verification expertise make PureSpec the best-in-class verification IP solution for PCI Express designs. The PureSpec product is available now for customer evaluation at: www.denali.com/purespec

About Denali Software, Inc.
Denali Software Inc. is the world's leading provider of EDA tools and Semiconductor Intellectual Property (SIP) solutions for chip interface design, integration, and verification. PureSpec is the industry leading solution for verifying compliance and interoperability for PCI Express designs. Denali's Databahn memory controller cores are licensed for use in over 80 chips and provide designers with the highest quality solution for interfacing with all new and emerging high-performance memory technologies. Denali's MMAV product is the de facto industry standard for modeling and simulating memory during all phases of design and verification. Memory selection, memory controller configuration, and memory system performance analysis are supported through Denali's online infrastructure at eMemory.com. More than 400 companies worldwide use Denali's tools, technology, and services to design and verify complex chip interfaces for communication, consumer, and computer products. For more information, please visit Denali at www.denali.com or contact Denali directly at: 650-461-7200.

Denali, the Denali logo, Databahn, eMemory, MMAV, and PureSpec are trademarks of Denali Software, Inc., all rights reserved. PCI Express is a trademark of PCI-SIG. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.