Denali and CoWare Team on System-Level Verification Solutions

SystemC Standard Unites Interface Verification with System-Level Design

PALO ALTO, Calif., January 28, 2004 --Denali Software, Inc., the leading provider of electronic design automation (EDA) solutions for chip interface design and verification, and CoWare, the leading supplier of system-level EDA software and services, today announced a partnership to address system-level verification of complex chip designs. Through the partnership, the companies have developed a roadmap for an integrated verification solution that incorporates Denali’s MMAV™ and PureSpec™ interface verification platforms with CoWare’s ConvergenSC™ electronic system-level (ESL) products. The combined solution will enable customers to address system-level challenges associated with designing and verifying PCI Express and external memory interfaces in a SystemC environment.

With this joint solution, customers can explore, optimize, and verify designs quickly and early in the development cycle prior to RTL implementation, saving valuable development time and resulting in faster time-to-market with a higher quality end product. The solution will also enable designers to address system-level performance issues and quickly analyze the effects of various interface architecture options on overall chip performance.

"Access to Denali’s extensive library of memory models through ConvergenSC will make it possible for our joint users to verify complex SoC designs at the system level in SystemC," said Mark Milligan, vice president of marketing, CoWare. "By partnering with Denali we are linking the world of systems design to hardware verification using SystemC. This joint solution extends the ESL ecosystem by making it easy for customers to plug into their existing verification flows."

"Today’s systems designers require an unprecedented level of integration between high-level design abstractions and low-level functional verification," said Denali CTO Mark Gogolewski. "By teaming with CoWare, the market leader in system level design, we are able to provide customers with a tremendous advantage in designing and verifying chip interfaces in the context of the overall system verification flow."

About Denali MMAV and PureSpec
MMAV verification IP is the de-facto standard solution for modeling, simulating, and verifying ASIC interfaces to memory. MMAV provides the highest quality models for any memory type, from any vendor. A complete set of assertions are monitored during simulation to ensure compliance with timing, features, and functionality for any specific memory device. MMAV users have access to an on-line library (www.ememory.com) of all commercially available memory. 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, and all protocol layers (physical, data link, transaction) of the PCI Express specification. 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. MMAV and PureSpec are integrated to all popular EDA tools and verification methodologies.

About CoWare ConvergenSC
ConvergenSC is CoWare’s environment for the design, analysis, optimization, and verification of SoC platform models in SystemC. Designers use ConvergenSC to partition hardware and software functionality, and then to develop a system level SoC hardware architectural model that is used to verify SoC functionality and optimize both performance and power consumption – in weeks rather than months. The model and its functional testbench then drive and verify the RTL implementation to ensure its conformance with the system specification. It also provides a platform for embedded software development several months prior to RTL prototype availability, and for hardware/software co-verification that executes more than 1,000x faster than with RTL models.

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. 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

About CoWare
CoWare is the leading supplier of system-level electronic design automation (EDA) software tools and services. CoWare offers a comprehensive set of electronic system-level (ESL) tools that enable SoC developers to “differentiate by design” through the creation of system-IP including embedded processors, on-chip buses, and DSP algorithms; the architecture of optimized SoC platforms; and hardware/software co-design. The company’s solutions are based on open industry standards including SystemC. CoWare’s customers are major systems, semiconductor, and IP companies in the market where consumer electronics, computing, and communications converge. CoWare’s corporate investors include ARM Ltd. [(LSE:ARM);(Nasdaq: ARMHY)], Cadence Design Systems (NYSE:CDN), STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM), and Sony Corporation (NYSE:SNE). CoWare is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., and has offices around the world. For more information about CoWare and its products and services, visit www.coware.com

Denali, The Denali logo, Databahn, eMemory, MMAV, and PureSpec are trademarks of Denali Software, Inc. ConvergenSC is a trademark of CoWare, Inc. CoWare is a registered trademark of CoWare, Inc. in the United States. PCI Express is a trademark of PCI-SIG. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.