SANYO Selects CoWare's LISATek Products and Services for Custom DSP Design

SANYO Reports Design Time Cut by 50 to 66% for Fast Processor Model and Software Development Tools

SAN JOSE, Calif.--Aug. 22, 2005--CoWare® Inc., the leading supplier of electronic system-level (ESL) design software and services, announced that SANYO Electric Co., Ltd., has purchased LISATek(TM) Processor Designer and Processor Generator software, as well as consulting services from CoWare. CoWare has worked with SANYO to develop a LISA 2.0 model of its SANYO digital signal processor (DSP) core. The three-year purchase agreement will enable SANYO to replace its current manual design methods with a LISATek-based methodology to reduce its DSP core design cycle time by fifty to sixty-six percent.

"DSPs are not only the domain of a few large vendors," said Will Strauss, president of Forward Concepts, an electronics market research firm located in Phoenix, Ariz. "Many more custom DSPs from many other vendors are hidden inside consumer chips today. This trend is growing as languages like LISA 2.0 and software development tools start to ease custom DSP design. Clearly, this is another growth opportunity for the DSP chip market."

"Customers adopting LISATek achieve drastic improvements in productivity for their custom processor design," said Johannes Stahl, director of marketing at CoWare. "LISATek's superior performance in generating the C-Compiler and RTL code is key for successful application with consumer designs."

LISATek Provided Most Comprehensive Capabilities of All Tools Evaluated

Stated Hideki Ohashi, manager, DSP Development Section, IP Development Department, System Solution Central Business Unit, SANYO Electric Co., Ltd., "We evaluated a number of products, but LISATek was an easy choice. The range of capabilities that LISATek provides was far superior, and the result was a dramatic decrease in our development time."

LISATek, based on the easy-to-understand LISA 2.0 language, automatically generates the software development environment (assembler, debugger, and linker) from the LISA 2.0 model. This capability alone enabled SANYO to cut its development time to one-third the time it previously required. And because LISATek generates RTL code directly, SANYO can use that code for implementing its next generation DSP. SANYO already uses CoWare's ConvergenSC® system-level design tools, so the company will be able to establish an integrated ESL design environment using the fast LISATek-generated ISS model. Through these capabilities, SANYO expects to further decrease its design cycle time.

About CoWare

CoWare is the leading supplier of electronic system-level (ESL) design software and services. CoWare offers a comprehensive set of 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.; Cadence Design Systems; STMicroelectronics; and Sony Corporation. 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.

ConvergenSC and CoWare are registered trademarks and LISATek is a trademark of CoWare, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.