Escalade Joins Synopsys In-Sync Program

Business Wire, March 12, 1998

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 12, 1998--Escalade(TM) Corporation, an electronic design automation (EDA) software supplier, has joined the Synopsys(r) in-Sync(r) Program. in-Sync, Synopsys' leading third-party EDA vendor integration program, establishes partnerships with other EDA vendors to enable smoother customer design flows. Through the in-Sync program, both companies will have access to each other's design tools involved in the integration for ongoing testing and support of the design flow.

As a partner in the in-sync Program, Escalade's high-level design automation (HLDA) software tools, DesignBook(r) and Design Explorer(r), will be integrated with Synopsys Design Compiler(TM) and VHDL System Simulator(TM) (VSS). The integration will enable mutual customers to seamlessly verify and synthesize their designs. This smoother design flow removes the need for users to manually modify code being generated for the Synopsys tools and automates management of the synthesis process.

"This integration with Escalade will benefit mutual customers because we are addressing interoperability issues," said Dave Tokic, manager of the in-Sync program at Synopsys. "We are always looking for ways to increase user productivity and this solution does that. Designers can now spend more time designing instead of working on integrating the different tool sets."

In addition, the integration accelerates testbench development and facilitates debugging during simulation using VSS and enables high-quality synthesizable Verilog and VHDL input to Design Compiler. Benefits include faster design iterations with fewer jumps between tool environments and better quality of results from HDL generation optimized for the Synopsys tools.

"Synopsys is an important partner for Escalade," says Jean-Pierre Braun, Escalade's president and CEO. "The combination of our software tools offers a powerful design environment to ASIC designers."

About Synopsys

Synopsys, Inc. (Nasdaq:SNPS) is a leading supplier of electronic design automation (EDA) solutions to the global electronics market. The company provides comprehensive design technologies to creators of advanced integrated circuits, electronic systems, and systems on a chip. Synopsys also provides consulting services and support to its customers to streamline the overall design process and accelerate time to market. Additional information about Synopsys is available at http://www.synopsys.com.

About DesignBook

DesignBook allows designers to capture functionality or design intent, synthesis and simulation constraints using a combination of powerful language-independent paradigms. Its benefits are measured in time to market, as well as synthesis and simulation efficiency, resulting in faster and denser designs. By allowing designers to enter their designs at a higher level of abstraction, DesignBook automatically performs many static verification tasks that would be difficult otherwise, adding to the "safety" of the design and reducing time to completion. DesignBook symbolic entry ensures complete portability between Verilog HDL and VHDL, and across a wide range of implementation technologies.

About Design Explorer

Design Explorer, a DesignBook option, allows designers to quickly make optimization trade-offs through automation of mechanics of design space exploration. Design Explorer was designed to improve the productivity of designers who perform numerous module-level synthesis iterations to reach the desired area versus speed trade-offs for their design. As a result, designers can produce higher quality designs faster.

About Escalade

Escalade was founded in 1993 with the mission to deliver software solutions that enable electronics engineers to maximize productivity benefits of high-level design automation (HLDA). Escalade's DesignBook augments existing HLDA methodology by providing a powerful "plug and play" platform for design reuse and IP integration. Escalade employs approximately 40 professionals worldwide. It is funded by Venture Capital Firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Hummer Winblad, August Capital, Sofinnova and Walden International Investment. Corporate headquarters are located at 2475 Augustine Drive, Santa Clara, Calif., 95054. Escalade's Web Site is located at: http://www.escalade.com. -0-

Escalade acknowledges trademarks or registered trademarks of other organizations for their respective products and services.

Synopsys and in-Sync are registered trademarks of Synopsys Inc. Synopsys Design Compiler and VHDL System Simulator are trademarks of Synopsys, Inc. All other trademarks or registered trademarks mentioned in this release are the intellectual property of their respective owners.

CONTACT: Jill Jacobs Nanette Collins

408/654-1610 617/437-1822

jj@escalade.com nanette@nvc.com