CoWare and Novas Partner to Develop Common Debug Environment for SystemC and Hardware Description Languages (HDLs)

Market-Leading Debug Technology to Speed and Ease Debugging as System Level Designs are Refined for Implementation

SAN JOSE, Calif., June 2, 2003 - CoWare™ Inc., the leading supplier of system-level electronic design automation (EDA) software, and Novas Software, Inc., the leader in debug systems for complex chip designs, announced they are collaborating to deliver an integration roadmap between their tools and bring Novas' market-leading debug technology to SystemC.

The companies will create a link between CoWare's recently announced ConvergenSC™ system-level-design tools and Novas' Debussy® Debug System, which will enable customers to debug SystemC, Verilog and VHDL in a common environment for SystemC and HDL flows. The CoWare ConvergenSC product family is the EDA industry's first system-level design solution using a common infrastructure for both design and verification, built expressly for SystemC.

"SystemC is the clear language of choice for system-level design, and Novas is a leader in debug technology for HDLs," says Mark Milligan, vice president, marketing, CoWare. "This integration will bring the power of SystemC into a debug environment used by many HDL designers worldwide."

"Novas has long been the industry leader in debug technology for HDLs," said Scott Sandler, president and CEO of Novas. "CoWare SystemC ConvergenSC tools make them a logical partner for our leap into the SystemC domain."

Novas users will be able to maintain a highly functional debug environment regardless of what simulator they use.

For more information, please contact partners@CoWare.com.

About CoWare
CoWare, the leading supplier of system-level electronic design automation (EDA) software, is revolutionizing system on chip (SoC) and embedded software development by enabling engineers to create design platforms optimized for specific market requirements. Its software is employed today by major systems, intellectual property (IP) and semiconductor companies worldwide. For the second year, the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal has recognized CoWare as one of the fastest-growing private companies in Silicon Valley. For more information, visit http://www.coware.com.

About Novas
Novas is the pioneer of debug systems that reduce the functional verification costs for complex IC designs. Building upon the strength of its market-leading Debussy® Debug System, Novas' VerdiÔ Behavior-Based Debug System further improves the efficiency of designers in the system-on-chip era with advanced design exploration and debug capabilities. These allow design teams to better understand and analyze complex or unfamiliar design behavior, and cut by half or more the time it takes to locate, isolate and understand the root causes of design problems. Highlighted as one of the "Top 100 Products" for 2002 by EDN Magazine, Verdi also holds the honor as finalist for the EDN 2002 Innovation Award. There are more than 10,000 Novas systems in use today at customer sites worldwide. Novas is headquartered in San Jose, Calif. with offices in Europe, Japan and Asia-Pacific. For more information visit www.novas.com or send email to info@novas.com.

ConvergenSC is a trademark and CoWare is a registered trademark of CoWare, Inc. Novas and Debussy are registered trademarks and Verdi is a trademark of Novas Software, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.