Sonics and Coware Forms Strategic Partnership

Collaboration to Speed Development of Complex SoCs using System-level Design and SystemC

Mountain View, Calif. — April 19, 2004 — Sonics, Inc., a leading provider of SOC (system-on-chip) architectures and SMART Interconnect IP products, and CoWare, Inc., the leading supplier of system-level electronic design automation (EDA) software and services, today announced a long-term strategic partnership to speed the development of complex SoCs. The companies will work together to create SystemC-based design solutions using CoWare's ConvergenSC system-level design tools and Sonics' SMART Interconnect IP products.

"We selected Sonics as a strategic partner because their SMART Interconnect IP products are an increasingly important technology for the development of complex SoCs," said Alan Naumann, president and CEO of CoWare. "Our customers are asking us to combine our system-level design solutions with Sonics' Interconnect IP to rapidly design high-performance, multi-million gate SoCs."

"CoWare is a leader in system-level electronic design automation, and the ConvergenSC SystemC-based system-level design environment is widely used among developers of complex SoCs," said Grant Pierce, president and CEO of Sonics. "This partnership will create a very powerful solution to help our customers minimize risk, reduce design costs, and accelerate time to market."

Strategic Partnership To Speed Design and Reduce Risk
One of the most difficult and risky tasks facing SOC design teams is architecting and verifying complex designs before committing to costly silicon production. Designers are rapidly adopting system-level design using SystemC to quickly design and validate alternative architecture choices. Likewise, the on-chip interconnect is becoming one of the most important architectural and design decisions that a team must make. CoWare and Sonics formed this long term strategic partnership to meet the needs of engineers needing to move up to system-level design and SystemC.

Sonics SMART Interconnect IP connects complex IP blocks such as microprocessors, DSPs, and hardware accelerators such as MPEG2 and MPEG4 encoders/decoders with any other IP block with a high degree of silicon efficiency and high data throughput. CoWare's ConvergenSC speeds the design of SoCs with embedded software with hardware-software partitioning, platform design automation, and architecture analysis tools.

The results of the partnership will enable system-level design for the two companies' mutual customers, greatly speeding development time while increasing predictability. As a result, the likelihood of producing successful, high-performance first pass silicon will be greatly increased. The first deliverables being created through this collaboration are under development with the guidance of key customers and will be announced in the second half of 2004.

About CoWare, Inc.
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 http://www.coware.com.

About Sonics, Inc.
Sonics, Inc. is a leading provider of SOC architectures and SMART Interconnect Intellectual Property (IP) that accelerate the development of complex SoCs, reduce development costs and increase the reusability of IP. Major semiconductor and systems companies including Broadcom, Samsung, Texas Instruments and Toshiba have applied Sonics architectures, IP products and methodologies in SoCs used in leading products in the wireless, digital consumer and communications markets. Sonics customers have experienced dramatic reduction in time to market, from years to months, while enjoying savings in design and manufacturing costs. Sonics is a privately held company funded by Investar Capital, Smart Technology Ventures, TL Ventures, Easton Hunt Capital, JAFCO Ventures, and H&Q Asia-Pacific. For more information, see http://www.sonicsinc.com.

SMART Interconnect IP is a trademark of Sonics, Inc. ConvergenSC is a trademark of CoWare, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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