NEC Electronics and Cadence Announce Encounter Platform to Support NEC Electronics' ISSP Structured ASIC Platform

NEC Electronics Corp. (TSE: 6723) with its global affiliates and Cadence® Design Systems Inc. CDN today announced that the NEC Electronics' Instant Silicon Solution Platform™ (ISSP™) family of structured ASICs will be supported by Cadence's Encounter™ digital IC design platform. When used in the back end of the ISSP design flow, Encounter can reduce design turnaround time by up to 50 percent compared to conventional design flows, which means ISSP customers can bring products to market much more quickly.

NEC Electronics' ISSP devices provide a cost-effective, high-function, easy-to-design, fast turnaround ASIC architecture ideal for designs requiring low- to mid-range production volumes. Customers using ISSP provide NEC Electronics or a certified design house participating in NEC Electronics' ISSP Open Alliance Program with a netlist of the IC design. As a result of today's announcement, NEC Electronics or the design house can then complete the remainder of the design flow in a greatly expedited manner.

"For the continued success of our ISSP products, it is important for NEC Electronics to work with leading EDA tool vendors to ensure that their products support our platform," said Dr. Hitoshi Yoshizawa, general manager, 3rd custom LSI division, NEC Electronics. "Cadence is recognized worldwide as a top supplier of electronic design technologies, which made our decision to use the Encounter design flow an easy one. Additionally, Encounter's NanoRoute engine helped deliver excellent routing results while guaranteeing signal integrity."

"We are very pleased with the outcome of our integration activity with NEC Electronics," said Lavi Lev, executive vice president and general manager of Cadence's IC business unit. "ISSP is an important new silicon platform in the ASIC marketplace, and its core characteristics of high performance and short turnaround time are a synergistic match with the characteristics of our Encounter platform. We are particularly pleased that NEC Electronics now has a common implementation platform between its standard ASIC and ISSP offerings, as this further enhances the efficiency of its design organization."

About ISSP
The ISSP architecture was designed to serve the growing number of applications that require higher complexity and performance than an FPGA but cannot bear the high development costs associated with cell-based ASICs. Each NEC Electronics ISSP design begins with a prefabricated master composed of an array of complex multi-gates, embedded IP cores, built-in test circuits, clock domains and power lines. The upper metal layers are easily and quickly placed, routed and fabricated to satisfy the unique requirements of each individual design. ISSP-based products consume much less power than a comparable FPGA and also have lower NRE costs than cell-based ASIC devices.

About Encounter for ISSP
The Encounter platform is a new-generation IC implementation system used for completing large-scale system-on-chip (SoC) designs within short, predictable development cycles, from synthesis and silicon virtual prototyping through final chip implementation. ISSP support in Encounter allows fast, full-chip timing closure with integrated SI-aware routing.

About Cadence
Cadence is the largest supplier of electronic design technologies, methodology services, and design services. Cadence solutions are used to accelerate and manage the design of semiconductors, computer systems, networking and telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics, and a variety of other electronics-based products. With approximately 5,000 employees and 2002 revenues of approximately $1.3 billion, Cadence has sales offices, design centers, and research facilities around the world. The company is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., and traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CDN. More information about the company, its products and services is available at www.cadence.com.

About NEC Electronics
NEC Electronics Corporation (TSE: 6723) specializes in semiconductor products encompassing advanced technology solutions for the high-end computing and broadband networking markets, system solutions for the mobile handsets, PC peripherals, automotive and digital consumer markets, and platform solutions for a wide range of customer applications. NEC Electronics Corporation has 24 subsidiaries worldwide including NEC Electronics America, Inc. and NEC Electronics (Europe) GmbH. In addition to marketing, selling and supporting NEC Electronics products to customers in their respective regions, NEC Electronics America and NEC Electronics Europe also operate local manufacturing facilities in Roseville, California, and Ballivor, Ireland, respectively. Additionally, NEC Electronics America and NEC Electronics Europe are the sales and marketing channels for NEC AM-LCD and PDP modules in their individual countries. For additional information about NEC Electronics worldwide, visit www.necel.com.