CoWare Advances Design of Ultra Wideband (UWB) Wireless Networking Products With Library Support Through Its Signal Processing Worksystem (SPW)

Leader in System-level Design Is First to Announce Library Support for Technology Under IEEE Consideration for the UWB Standard

SAN JOSE, Calif.--December 1, 2003--CoWare Inc., the leading supplier of system-level electronic design automation (EDA) software and services, announced the addition of Ultra Wideband (UWB) to its Signal Processing Worksystem™ (SPW) wireless LAN library. The company is the first in the industry to announce library support for technology being considered for the emerging UWB standard. UWB is a revolutionary technology for the design of wireless networking products.

"UWB has a tremendous amount of potential in terms of throughput, low power, and low cost, compared to other wireless technologies," said Gemma Paulo, senior networks analyst, In-Stat/MDR. "With many companies awaiting a conclusion in the IEEE 802.15.3a standard before shipping products based on the technology, we are pleased to see CoWare enabling mainstream designers to create UWB designs. This can help proliferate the technology and products based on it."

Two proposals are under consideration for the standard of implementing UWB in short-range wireless personal area networks. The CoWare SPW wireless LAN library now supports orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) technology. If the competing proposal for direct sequence code division multiple access (DSCDMA) technology is accepted, CoWare will expand its WLAN library to support it as well.

"We are committed to supporting the technology that will help our customers design products based on UWB technology," said Isaac Sundarajan, vice president and general manager of the CoWare SPW business unit. "We are offering OFDM technology as a starting point and we are also ready to add the DSCDMA technology so customers can begin to work with UWB. CoWare continuously updates its libraries to help our customers leverage the most current information available for communications and multimedia standards."

SPW Wireless LAN Library with UWB Support
CoWare SPW is a complete platform for design and verification of DSP algorithms. Its up-to-date communications and multimedia libraries are accessible through a hierarchical block diagram approach, based on more than 3,500 building blocks. The WLAN library includes end-to-end system models of WLAN standards including WiFi compliance, as well as an executable version of the standards. Using the library, system and design engineers can rapidly create an accurate model of the system, incorporate their differentiating pieces, and then simulate the system under different scenarios to optimize the system architecture. According to Siavash Alamouti, director of systems engineering at Vivato, Inc., "CoWare's SPW libraries are the industry's most comprehensive offering of design libraries for wireless and wired communication systems. We are excited that CoWare is now offering UWB support through their WLAN library—which we own. This library enables us to simulate coexistence issues between WiFi and UWB incumbents quickly and easily. Also, in the short term, it will be a very useful platform for the standard bodies to objectively compare the different UWB proposals, and in the long-term to accelerate the realization of the standard."

Experts to Discuss Opportunities for UWB Design During December 3-4 Web Seminar
Wireless design expert Dr. Manouchehr Rafie will present his ideas on "Opportunities for UWB Design" during a web seminar to be held December 3, 2003, at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, and December 4, 2003 at 6:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. Each seminar will be followed by a live Q&A session. Sponsored by CoWare, the event will also include an update on the company's SPW products—including UWB support—as well as opening statements by Dr. Heinrich Meyr, CoWare's chief scientist and professor and co-director of the Institute for Integrated Signal Processing System at the Aachen University of Technology (RWTH Aachen). For more information or to register for the seminar, contact Tamme Delfino at 408-392-8546 or visit www.coware.com.

Pricing and Availability
The next release of the CoWare wireless LAN library with support for UWB OFDM technology is slated to ship worldwide in December 2003. The initial UWB reference model will be available to valid SPW WLAN users as part of their maintenance update. New customers can take advantage of short-term promotional pricing starting at $10,000 (U.S.) for an annual subscription license. For more information, contact CoWare or visit www.coware.com.

About CoWare
CoWare, the leading supplier of system-level electronic design automation (EDA) software, is revolutionizing system on chip (SoC) and embedded software development by enabling engineers to create design platforms optimized for specific market requirements. Its software is employed today by major systems, intellectual property (IP) and semiconductor companies worldwide. For the second year, the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal has recognized CoWare as one of the fastest-growing private companies in Silicon Valley. For more information, visit: http://www.coware.com.

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