PrismTech Dramatically Raises Software Defined Radio - SDR - Developer Productivity with Launch of Spectra Power Tools; Spectra Power Tools Support Faster Time-to-Market, Lower Costs and Higher Quality over Traditional SDR Development

Business Wire, June 21, 2005

BOSTON & WASHINGTON -- Today at the SDR Forum's Workshop in Washington DC and the OMG(TM)'s Technical Meeting in Boston, PrismTech a leading provider of productivity tools and middleware, announced the launch of Spectra Power Tools. The Spectra Power Tools productivity suite for Software Defined Radio (SDR) developers addresses the complete software development and deployment lifecycle and supports faster time-to-market, lower costs, and higher quality over traditional SDR development.

Accelerating SDR Deployment

Today, wireless OEMs serve a wide range of communications markets including cellular, military, satellite, public safety, wireless LAN/WAN, aerospace, and automotive. These OEMs are striving to introduce advanced multi-mode, multi-standard products while lowering costs, shortening times-to-market, and raising quality. New SDR technologies support these aims by enabling (re)configurability, software reuse, hardware platform flexibility, and increased outsourcing. Thus OEMs are increasingly looking to these technologies for competitive advantage, and the software content of their products (both infrastructure equipment and user terminals) is increasing dramatically. This trend is highlighted by reports that the software 'cost content' of 3G W-CDMA base stations is now 55% and forecast to grow further. Market analysts forecast accelerating SDR technology deployment as new developer tools and radio platform technologies come to market.

Managing Complexity

To efficiently exploit SDR, wireless OEMs' operational focus is increasingly on managing the software lifecycle; not just for each new product, but across successive generations of new products. The biggest barrier to SDR deployment in the past has been the sheer complexity of the technology - the potential business benefits being offset by additional costs and risks. However, increasing market demands (e.g. numerous waveforms supported in a single product, the proliferation of standards, the convergence of handheld functionality) and new easier-to-use SDR development and deployment technologies are combining to underpin the analysts' aggressive forecasts. New SDR technologies include hardware advances in programmable processors like DSPs and FPGAs; but also new software tools and environments that hide much of the inherent complexity and thus offer huge productivity gains to SDR developers.

With the launch of its new Spectra Power Tools product suite, PrismTech is able to lead the way in this area.

Operational Benefits from Spectra Power Tools

Spectra Power Tools provide benefits throughout the SDR development and deployment lifecycle. They dramatically raise developer productivity by reducing interface complexity, auto-generating much of the code, and facilitating application reuse.

SDR developers are no longer required to be experts in numerous advanced technologies. Spectra Modeling Tools provide a fast, visual approach to waveform and radio platform development. They support modular development, the outsourcing of relevant functionality (if desirable), and a common reference methodology for developers and systems engineers.

Spectra Automatic Code-Generators also greatly enhance productivity:

--Model changes are quickly and correctly propagated to all generated code,

--Architectural and syntactic consistency is built-in,

--The system design is captured in one location,

--Time saved from the hand-coding is applied to higher value-add,

--All team members use the same generated code and frameworks,

--Changes are easily proliferated,

--The tedious elements of software development are eliminated.

Furthermore, Spectra Power Tools inherently facilitate (re)configuration and reuse, thus independently extending the life of both the radio platform and software applications (waveforms).

"Spectra Power Tools are able to offer these benefits due to some significant breakthrough technologies that PrismTech is pioneering," said Dominick Paniscotti, VP Engineering SDR products, PrismTech. "These include advanced domain-specific modeling techniques, automatic code-generation technologies, domain-specific languages, high-level user interface designs, highly-optimized middleware, advanced integration with underlying transports, standards-based APIs and tool frameworks."

"Spectra Power Tools will allow developers to focus on value-add rather than application interface and infrastructure complexity, thus ensuring a more productive, rewarding and satisfying development cycle," added Keith Steele, CEO, PrismTech.

To coincide with the Spectra Power Tools launch, PrismTech is announcing two webcasts to be held on 6 July, 2005 which will give an overview and demonstration of the products. Further information and registration for the webcasts is available from PrismTech's website at http://www.prismtech.com.

PrismTech will also be demonstrating at other forthcoming events including the OMG's Real-time Embedded Systems Workshop, 11-14 July 2005, Washington, DC and the OMG's Software Based Communications Workshop, 16-19 August 2005, San Diego, CA.