Powerful proof engine validates Xilinx Virtex-II Cores

San Mateo, California, October 27, 2000 - Prover Technology, the leading provider of commercially packaged proof engines, today announced that Xilinx, the leading innovator of complete programmable logic solutions, has deployed Prover Technology's proof engine Prover Plug-In to ensure the correctness of IP in the Xilinxâ CORE Generator system for the new Virtexä-II FPGA architecture.The deployment of Prover Plug-In allows Xilinx to deliver the highest quality cores, enabling its customers to begin designs for the new Virtex-II architecture before silicon is available.

The CORE Generator system is a component of the Xilinx Foundation ISEä and Alliance Seriesä software and enables the configuration of parameterized cores for Xilinx devices, including the new Virtex-II architecture. The Virtex II architecture was developed for system performance by maximizing bandwidth in I/O, timing, memory, and processing.

Xilinx has developed an in-house verification tool tailored to the Virtex family, which at its heart uses Prover Plug-In. The combination has resulted in a system that automatically establishes the correctness of core implementations produced by the CORE Generator system. The proof engine technology was specifically used to verify Xilinx BaseBLOX components. These building blocks are used heavily in customer designs and in higher level cores, so their correctness is of the utmost importance.

"By using Prover Plug-In when verifying our IP for the Virtex-II architecture, we were able to complement our existing verification flow with formal verification to find and fix additional bugs over and above those usually found by traditional simulation, " said Bill Carter, VP and chief technology officer of Xilinx. "We chose Prover Plug-In because it is based on SAT technology which allows much larger circuits to be verified compared to conventional formal verification technologies such as BDD."

"Xilinx is one of the world leaders when it comes to advanced, integrated system functions and a pioneer in adopting formal verificaton solutions for programmable hardware, says Arne Boralv, President US Operations, Prover Technology. "In this joint project, we provided the proof engine and the know-how, and Xilinx provided the application-specific software in a collaboration that underscored the strengths of each company and delivered far ahead of expectations."

About Prover Plug-In

Prover Plug-In is the leading commercially packaged line of proof engines. Prover Plug-In is used to automatically test hardware and software designs to 100%. EDA and CASE tool vendors as well as Fortune 500 companies customize and integrate Prover Plug-In into their system development environments. With the click of a button system engineers have access to fully automated verification, moving testing into earlier phases, resulting in dramatic time and resource benefits. Prover Plug-In has quality APIs and is compatible with common industry standards.

About Prover Technology

Prover Technology is, with its product line Prover Plug-In, the leading provider of commercially packaged proof engines. Founded in 1989, Prover Technology is one of the industry's most experienced companies in the field of automated formal verification. Its investors include Intel Capital, London-based MVI, and The Swedish Industrial Development Fund. Prover Technology has direct sales offices in Sweden (HQ), France, and in the US. For more information, see Prover Technology's web site at www.prover.com.

Prover is a registered trademark of Prover Technology AB. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders

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Press contact:
Monika Claassen
Prover Technology
Phone direct: 415-753-9497
monika.claassen@prover.com

Powerful proof engine validates Xilinx Virtex-II Cores