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For Immediate Release
SYNPLICITY TO FOCUS ON FPGA AND VERIFICATION
MARKETS
SUNNYVALE, Calif., March 30, 2006 - Synplicity, Inc. (Nasdaq: SYNP),
a leading supplier of software for the design and verification of
semiconductors, today announced a plan to re-focus its R&D investment
and headcount on its strategic growth opportunities in FPGA implementation
and ASIC verification.
“LSI Logic’s recent decision to withdraw their RapidChip
platform ASIC product from the market prompted a reassessment of
the market opportunity associated with our investments in the ASIC
product line,” said Gary Meyers, Synplicity’s CEO and
president. “The impact of their withdrawal delays the estimated
time at which our ASIC software business could become profitable.
While we continue to see growth potential in the structured ASIC
market, we see a greater return in our FPGA implementation, ESL
synthesis for DSP, and ASIC verification products,” continued
Meyers. “Our decision then, is to withdraw from the cell-based
and structured ASIC markets while we continue to support our existing
customers and honor our ongoing obligations with Fujitsu Microelectronics,
LSI Logic and NEC Electronics. About half of our ASIC R&D team
will be re-deployed to other exciting growth opportunities.”
“We have an outstanding ASIC development team, and with their
new focus on products such as Synplify Premier, Certify and Synplify
DSP, we can accelerate our lead in these key growth markets,”
Meyers concluded.
The plan to exit the ASIC markets includes a workforce reduction
of approximately 8 percent, concentrated in the Company’s
Sunnyvale facility. The reduction in force is estimated to reduce
the Company’s annual personnel-related expenses by approximately
$4.5 million per year. Severance costs and the impairment of capitalized
software development costs are estimated to result in a charge to
the Company of approximately $900 thousand in the March 2006 quarter.
The Company will discuss this decision in more detail and will provide
updated 2006 financial guidance during its upcoming Q1 2006 earnings
conference call.
About Synplicity
Synplicity® Inc. (Nasdaq: SYNP) is a leading supplier of innovative
software solutions that enable the rapid and effective design of
Programmable Logic Devices (FPGAs, PLDs and CPLDs) that serve a
wide range of communications, military/aerospace, consumer, semiconductor,
computer, and other electronic systems markets. Synplicity’s
tools provide outstanding performance, cost and time-to-market benefits
by simplifying, improving and automating key design planning, logic
synthesis, physical synthesis and verification functions for FPGA,
FPGA-based ASIC prototyping, and DSP designers. Synplicity is the
number one supplier of FPGA synthesis solutions and has been rated
#1 in customer satisfaction in 2004 and 2005 in EE Times’
Annual FPGA Customer Survey. Synplicity products support industry-standard
design languages (VHDL and Verilog) and run on popular platforms.
The company operates in over 20 facilities worldwide and is headquartered
in Sunnyvale, California. For more information visit http://www.synplicity.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements including,
but not limited to, statements regarding Synplicity’s growth,
market performance, standard of its products and operating results.
These statements relate to future events and involve known and unknown
risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause Synplicity's
actual financial results, levels of activity, performance, achievements
or market position to differ materially from those expressed or
implied by the forward-looking statements. In some cases, you will
be able to identify forward-looking statements by terminology such
as “may,” “will,” “should,”
“expects,” “plans,” “anticipates,”
“believes,” “estimates,” “predicts,”
“potential,” “continue”, “can”
or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology.
Forward-looking statements are only predictions and actual events
or results may differ materially. Synplicity cannot provide any
assurance that its future results will meet expectations. For additional
information and considerations regarding the risks faced by Synplicity,
see its annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31,
2005, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well
as other periodic reports filed with the SEC from time to time.
Although Synplicity believes that the expectations reflected in
the forward-looking statements are reasonable, Synplicity cannot
guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements.
In addition, neither Synplicity nor any other person assumes responsibility
for the accuracy or completeness of these forward-looking statements.
Synplicity disclaims any obligation to update information contained
in any forward-looking statement.
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Synplicity, Synplify and Certify are registered trademarks of Synplicity,
Inc. All other brands or products are the trademarks or registered
trademarks of their owners.
Synplicity PR Contact:
Steve Gabriel
Porter Novelli
408-369-4600 x627
steve.Gabriel@porternovelli.com
Investor Relations
John J. Hanlon
Synplicity, Inc.
408-215-6000
ir@synplicity.com
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