Synplicity and Xilinx Create Design Task Force to Tackle Timing Closure for Ultra High-Capacity FPGAs

Engineering Teams Collaborate on Design Flow for Next-Generation 65-nm Devices

Sunnyvale, Calif. and San Jose, Calif., May 15, 2006 – Synplicity, Inc. (NASDAQ: SYNP), a leading supplier of software for the design and verification of semiconductors, and Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX), the world’s leading supplier of programmable solutions, today announced the formation of their joint Ultra High-Capacity Timing Closure Task Force. Engineering teams from both companies will collaborate to define and implement new design flows that maximize the quality of results and design productivity of ultra high-density designs with next-generation 65-nanometer (nm) FPGAs.

The industry’s first 65-nm Virtex™-5 FPGA family introduced separately today by Xilinx, includes devices with up to 330,000 logic cells, 10-Mb on-chip memory, 1,200 I/Os and a host of additional hardened intellectual property (IP) blocks on the new Virtex-5 LX Platform. Future platforms will add even greater density points and capabilities further expanding the reach of advanced FPGA architectures across a wide range of application domains. Synplicity and Xilinx will build upon their existing support of these 65-nm devices to develop next-generation design automation solutions that enable system designers to take full advantage of their capacity and performance while achieving rapid timing closure.

“We’re very pleased to take the existing strong relationship between our two companies to the next level,” said Bruce Talley, vice president, Design Software Division at Xilinx. “The Synplicity team has a great deal of experience and track record of innovation when it comes to high performance, complex FPGA design with products like Synplify Pro and Synplify Premier physical synthesis. This joint task force provides an opportunity to more quickly  leverage engineering expertise and creativity across our development organizations.”

“Xilinx is breaking new ground with its 65-nm Virtex-5 FPGA product line,” said Ken McElvain, CTO at Synplicity. “These platforms require tools that are optimized to solve timing closure issues that arise from the unprecedented levels of performance and capabilities. The creation of this task force is targeted at helping our mutual customers deploy the Virtex-5 ultra-high capacity devices in their systems in the fastest, most efficient manner.”

Ultra High-Capacity Task Force
The Ultra High-Capacity Task Force will initially focus on providing dramatic improvements in overall quality of results and run time, and ensuring the stability of results when small changes are made to designs. Ultimately the Task Force’s goal is for designers to  realize the benefits of near push-button results for ultra high density designs along with the ability to complete multiple design iterations per day.

In view of the wide variety of applications enabled by these ultra high-capacity devices, the Task Force will focus on delivering multiple design flows and tools optimized to meet unique design goals. The joint Task Force expects the first of these tools and methodologies to be available in the first half of 2007. 

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) and are used in 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.

About Xilinx
Xilinx is the worldwide leader in complete programmable logic solutions. For more information, visit www.xilinx.com.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements including, but not limited to, statements regarding the performance, achievements and benefits of Synplicity software used in conjunction with third party products.  In some cases, you will be able to identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “expects,” “believes” or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology.  These statements are only predictions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements, including the performance and benefits of Synplicity’s software relative to relevant industry methods or standards, design flaws, design difficulties or other problems with Synplicity’s software and the growth and changing technical requirements in the FPGA market.  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, including its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q.  Although Synplicity believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, Synplicity cannot guarantee the future performance or achievements of its software.  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 is a registered trademark of Synplicity Inc.  All other brands or products mentioned herein are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Xilinx Media Contact:
Tamara Snowden
Xilinx North America
408/879-6146

tamara.snowden@xilinx.com