CoWare and iDeaWorks Deliver IP Reference Models for Platform-driven ESL Design ; Multi-year OEM Agreement Covers H.264 and Other Complex Algorithm Reference Models for CoWare Signal Processing Designer

MUNICH, Germany--March 6, 2006--CoWare(R) Inc., the leading supplier of electronic system-level (ESL) software and services and iDeaWorks Technologies, Inc., the leading algorithm analyst and developer for parallelized intellectual property (IP) solutions, announced a multi-year OEM agreement in which iDeaWorks delivers CoWare IP reference models integrated into CoWare Signal Processing Designer (formerly known as SPW).

"As platform-driven design becomes the mantra in our industry, we are looking to provide more and more platform components in a ready-to-use fashion to accelerate the platform design process for our customers," said AK Kalekos, vice president marketing and business development, CoWare. "We are glad to augment our own wireless standards reference models with expertise in multi-media standards such as H.264 coming from the iDeaWorks designers."

"CoWare ESL solutions lead the way by addressing the needs of SoC design teams for convergence applications," said Robert Barker, vice president business development, iDeaWorks. "Our go-to-market strategy in the IP space leverages CoWare's strong technology presence in major system and semiconductor companies around the globe."

Reference Source Code - A Designer's Nightmare

Today, designers are facing a significant challenge for design and verification of new applications such as H.264. If they have not been involved in the actual standardization work, it is very difficult to understand and implement starting with 35,000 lines of H.264 reference source code, which they can download from the standards committee website.

Structured Modeling: Getting to an Implementable Specification Faster

Implementation teams concerned with hardware and software partitioning and detailed design typically think in block diagrams of larger sub-functions. Each of those sub-functions may have specific system-level parameters (such as the picture size) or lower-level parameters for the implementation, which need to be managed in a transparent way. Finally, the designers need to execute the entire system effectively with no loss in simulation efficiency compared with the reference source code. CoWare Signal Processing Designer provides the data flow modeling, parameterization, and simulation capabilities for very complex signal processing applications.

CoWare Modeling, Infrastructure, and Simulation Speed

When design teams decide how to capture their IP, they are making a very long-term commitment. As an example, typical 2G algorithmic models that have been developed 15 or more years ago are still being used today as a golden, functional reference. For future advanced wireless systems and their underlying different user applications, such as multi-media, the design community is facing the same decision criteria for 2G, and they also need to be prepared to re-use the captured models with a much larger variety of different multi-processor platforms. With H.264, HSDPA, and other reference models, CoWare adds to the designer's own modeling effort a significant number of off-the-shelf, standards-based models, which the designer can leverage to speed up the design process. CoWare Signal Processing Designer is delivering the core tool strengths for successful algorithm design and is embedded into the entire CoWare Platform-driven ESL design solution.

Pricing & Availability

CoWare Signal Processing Designer H.264 Libraries are available today. For pricing information, contact the local CoWare sales representative. For more information on CoWare Signal Processing Designer and CoWare's other products, visit www.coware.com.

About iDeaWorks

iDeaWorks offers state-of-the-art algorithm development and analysis algorithmic electronic system-level (AESL) design tools. Utilizing broad domain expertise, iDeaWorks delivers optimized, architectural neutral, parallelized reference standards for use as reference tools during IC development. By leveraging the expertise at iDeaWorks, customers can efficiently implement complex standards without a significant in-house investment in domain-specific resources. Their solutions are standards-based and encapsulated in leading ESL tool environments or sold as standalone products. iDeaWorks is located in Milpitas, Calif. U.S.A., and has offices in Secunderabad, India.

About CoWare

CoWare is the leading supplier of electronic system-level (ESL) design software and services. CoWare offers a comprehensive set of platform-driven ESL products 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 (Nasdaq: CDNS), 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.