Synchronicity Enhances IP Gear to Streamline Supply-Side Intellectual Property Management

Business Wire, Nov 13, 2000

Business Editors & High-Tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 13, 2000

New Version of Leading Design Reuse System Enhanced

for Superior Collaboration With Trading Partners

Synchronicity, Inc. today introduced IP Gear(TM) version 1.2, which has been enhanced to manage supply-side Semiconductor Intellectual Property (SIP) transactions. With this new release, SIP suppliers achieve operational excellence through state-of-the-art SIP publication, distribution, support and other features that connect the development supply chain. Design engineers who receive SIP deliverables benefit from improved accuracy and "real-time" updates. Key features of IP Gear 1.2 are being used in the VCX announced October 23 and in the ARM IP Delivery and Support Systems announced this week.

"Last month Hitachi and Toshiba added themselves to the long list of large semiconductor companies using IP Gear for internal design reuse. The ARM and VCX announcements this month show that IP Gear is also the leading business-to-business solution for managing design data," said Dennis Harmon, CEO of Synchronicity. "We have learned a lot about design reuse and distribution on the way to becoming the market leader and IP Gear 1.2 makes the latest knowledge and experience available to all our customers."

IP Gear 1.2 includes five major new features to help connect the development supply chain:

1) Enhanced Deliverables Management: A new graphical "SIP Bundle Editor" eases grouping and sharing of SIP deliverables. Deliverables can now be assigned to one or more SIP components, to provide an effective way of managing deliverables among the SIP components (i.e. which files make up a large IP core).

2) IP Audit Trail Support: The "genealogy" of a SIP component or deliverable can automatically be traced back to engineering's design management system. SIP component data can be versioned and managed during the SIP development and publishing cycle.

3) Integration of Efficient IP Data Management: The commercial-grade design management system, Synchronicity's DesignSync, is now more tightly integrated with IP Gear. It minimizes or eliminates redundant data storage of SIP deliverables. This efficient storage is important to avoid duplication of data when "released" iterations of the deliverables are modified, enhanced, and/or re- published.

4) Consumer Change Notification: IP Consumers can subscribe for automatic notification of changes that affect them like new or modified components, deliverables, Knowledge Base entries, IP news etc.

5) Fast, Easy User Interface customization: Support for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) provides a simple method for the IP Gear administrator to customize the appearance of the IP Gear Catalog's user interface.

Pricing and Availability

Though some customers like ARM and VCX already using key components of IP Gear 1.2, it will be available to all in Q1 2001. Pricing starts at $500,000 with actual cost and configuration depending upon architecture and customer requirements. IP Gear server software runs on Solaris and HPUX and all that is needed on the client side is a recent Netscape or Internet Explorer browser.

About Synchronicity

Synchronicity supplies Internet-based enterprise & business-to-business collaboration solutions to manage the supply chain feeding the development of complex electronic products. Synchronicity's enterprise applications, DesignSync(R) and ProjectSync(R), enhance design productivity by enabling effective data management, parallel development techniques and proactive team communication within the design team, across the enterprise and between businesses. Synchronicity's IP Gear family of application servers enables organizations to create centralized resource web sites that enhance visibility, support complex decision processes, and manage the relationships and communication between the members of the development supply chain. Headquartered in Marlboro, MA, 508/485-4122, Synchronicity has offices worldwide, please see www.synchronicity.com.

The Synchronicity logo, DesignSync and ProjectSync are registered trademarks and IP Gear is a trademark of Synchronicity, Inc. of Marlboro, MA. All other trademarks are the property of their owners.