0-In Verification IP Portfolio Grows to Include More than 25 CheckerWare Monitors

Two new monitors verify PCI-X 2.0 and Serial Attached SCSI standard interconnect protocols in simulation, formal verification, hardware acceleration and emulation

SAN JOSE, Calif. -December 15, 2003 - Today 0-In Design Automation, the Assertion-Based Verification Company, announced that it has released two new entries in its family of CheckerWare monitors for standard interconnects. One is an entirely new product and 0-In's first entry specifically geared toward the storage products market - the monitor for Serial Attached SCSI (SAS). 0-In also announced a major upgrade for its PCI-X CheckerWare monitor to conform to the recently announced 2.0 version of the standard. The SAS and PCI-X 2.0 monitors can be used in simulation, including hardware acceleration and emulation, as well as in both static and dynamic formal verification.

"0-In has a history of leadership in emerging interconnect standards; we continue that tradition with the introduction of these two new products," said 0-In president and CEO Steve White. "With more than 25 CheckerWare monitors available today, our customers turn to us first when they need simulation and formal verification solutions for both old and new standards. Our monitors help our customers ensure that their products will interoperate with other industry products using the same standards."

The two monitors are available with Version 2.1 of the 0-In Assertion-Based Verification Suite. (See today's release entitled "Version 2.1 of 0-In's Assertion-Based Verification Suite Delivers Verification Earlier in Development Cycle" for V2.1 details.)

About Serial Attached SCSI
SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) is an industry standard for connecting disks and other peripheral subsystems to a wide range of computer systems. SAS is the latest evolution of SCSI, providing 3.0 Gb/s bandwidth and supporting up to 16K physical links. SAS allows for larger capacity as well as greater density, security, scalability and accessibility than previous versions of SCSI. Other features include:

• Full-duplex link communication.
  
• Software transparency with original SCSI.
  
• Compatibility with Serial ATA physical layer.
  
• Support for concurrent operation between the host and subsystems.

More information on the SAS standard is available on the SCSI Trade Association web site at: http://www.scsita.org/.

About PCI-X 2.0
The PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) protocol, originally developed for use in personal computers with x86 architectures, has been used in a broad range of electronic products, including workstations, servers, embedded systems, game controllers and consumer electronics. PCI-X 2.0 is a new, higher speed version of the conventional PCI standard. PCI-X 2.0 adds two new speed grades, PCI-X 266 and PCI-X 533, offering bandwidth up to 32 times faster than the first generation of PCI. Other features of PCI-X 2.0 include:

• Full hardware and software backward compatibility to previous generations of PCI.
  
• Same form factor, pin-outs, connector, bus widths, and protocols as PCI.
  
• Error-correcting code (ECC) support for enhanced system reliability.
  
• Simplified peer-to-peer transactions for applications such as streaming media.

More information on the PCI-X 2.0 standard is available on the PCI Special Interest Group web site at: http://www.pcisig.com/.

Pricing and Availability
The PCI-X 2.0 and SAS CheckerWare monitors are available now to design and verification teams. The North American list price for each monitor is $35,000 for a one-year time-based license.

About CheckerWare Monitors
0-In's CheckerWare monitors are easy-to-use interface monitors for verifying standard interconnect protocols in system-on-chip (SoC) designs. During simulation, hardware acceleration and emulation, the monitors warn users of any protocol violations, generating structural coverage and transaction statistics that can be analyzed in 0-In's assertion-based verification environment. These metrics help design and verification engineers assess whether or not all valid interconnect transaction types have been fully exercised during simulation testing and identify any verification "holes" that must be covered by additional tests. The monitors also provide targets and constraints that guide formal tools, including the 0-In Confirm static formal verification and 0-In Search dynamic formal verification tools, to ensure that the protocol is exhaustively verified. More than 25 CheckerWare monitors are available today, including PCI Express, HyperTransport, SPI-4.2 and AMBA. For a complete list of CheckerWare monitors, see http://www.0-in.com/products_monitors.html.

About 0-In
0-In Design Automation, Inc. (pronounced "zero-in") develops and supports functional verification products that help verify multi-million gate application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) and system-on-chip (SoC) designs. The company delivers a comprehensive assertion-based verification (ABV) solution built on industry standards that provides value throughout the design and verification cycle - from the block level to the chip and system levels. Twelve of the 15 largest electronics companies have adopted 0-In tools and methodologies in their integrated circuit (IC) design verification flows. 0-In was founded in 1996 and is based in San Jose, Calif. For more information, see http://www.0-in.com.

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0-In® and CheckerWare® are registered trademarks of 0-In Design Automation, Inc.