Press Release

22 March 2001 For immediate release

US EDA Company Supplies $500k Software Package to The Institute for System Level Integration

ClioSoft Inc., a California-based EDA company specializing in tools to improve electronic design team productivity, announced today (22 March) that it has supplied The Institute for System Level Integration (ISLI), based in Livingston, Scotland, with its innovative design data management system, SOS.

In a deal worth $500,000, ClioSoft will provide one hundred floating licenses for use throughout the Institute.

SOS will be available for use by Institute academicians, design experts and postgraduate students and may also be used by companies working jointly with the Institute. ISLI experts in hardware design will use SOS to enhance individual and group design productivity, while students will be able to use the software for group and individual projects as part of the Masters and Doctorate programmes in System Level Integration.

ClioSoft’s decision to donate the SOS package to the Institute – the first such donation to an academic institution – recognizes the Institute’s industrially-relevant teaching approach and the benefits to ClioSoft of raising awareness of SOS among future design engineers. As an integral part of the technical syllabus in SLI, students are provided with access to a range of leading EDA tools so that their course prepares them for working in the electronic design industry.

Micke Wersall, ClioSoft's European manager, comments, "Designers the world over are looking for better solutions for managing their design data and collaboration. It is valuable, then, for students on the Institute’s Masters and Doctorate programmes to acquire practical experience of tools such as SOS to help prepare them for real industrial practices. We obviously hope that students will become accustomed to working with SOS and take that knowledge into the workplace.”

“We encourage our students to work in ways which are relevant to their future roles as electronic design engineers. As design projects get bigger and more complex, students need to know how to keep track of large volumes of data and to synchronise teamwork effectively. We are pleased to have access to ClioSoft’s SOS product because it will provide exactly that sort of experience for students,” said Professor Steve Beaumont, ISLI Director.

For further information:

ISLI Contacts:

David Robinson, Institute for System Level Integration, The Alba Centre, Simpson Parkway, Kirkton Campus, Livingston, EH54 7BH. Tel: 01506 469328 / Fax: 01506 469301 / email: david.robinson@sli-institute.ac.uk.

Noreen O’Donnell, ISLI Marketing, Institute for System Level Integration, The Alba Centre, Simpson Parkway, Kirkton Campus, Livingston, EH54 7BH. Tel: 01506 469303 / Fax: 01506 469301 / email: noreen.odonnell@sli-institute.ac.uk.

ClioSoft Contact: Micke Wersäll, ClioSoft, Inc., 39034 Guardino Dr. Suite 203, Fremont CA 94538.

Tel: 510/794-5227 / Fax: 510/794-5213 / info@cliosoft.com / http://www.cliosoft.com /

email: micke.wersall@attglobal.net

Notes: How SOS Works

SOS is a design data management product for hardware design teams. It provides version control, work-area management, release management and project control, without forcing designers to change their existing design environment.

SOS is designed as a client-server system. Teams dispersed over multiple geographically dispersed sites can work and collaborate on the same project just as easily as teams located at one site.

Re-usable designs can be created by maintaining a complete design change history in a central repository. This allows design teams to easily back-up the central repository for future use.

SOS works with nearly any file type, including Verilog, VHDL, C, and C++, and with most of the popular EDA environments. It handles version control through a graphical user interface, where every engineer involved in the project gets the same view of that project. Each engineer can see how many versions of the file exist, and can check out any of those, which is helpful if different versions of an IC are being designed

Today, there are over 600 SOS licenses installed at semiconductor and systems houses worldwide.

The Institute for System Level Integration (ISLI)

The Institute for System Level Integration was established in November 1998 as an integral part of Project Alba, and was specifically created to fulfil the system-on-chip and system level integration education and training needs of the microchip design industry. In support of these, the Institute has created a number of programmes, including the taught Master of Science and Postgraduate Diploma in System Level Integration, the research based Engineering Doctorate programme in System Level Integration, and the new professional training syllabus in Test Engineering.

The Institute currently has over 70 full- and part-time students.

The Institute draws on the academic expertise of its own staff together with those of seven departments of Electronic Engineering, Computer Science and Informatics at The University of Edinburgh, The University of Glasgow, Heriot-Watt University and The University of Strathclyde. It has a high degree of industrial participation in all of its teaching and research activities.

The Institute is located in The Alba Centre building at the Alba Campus in Livingston and is a self-contained teaching and research facility.