FishTail Design Automation Signs Toshiba's System LSI Division
Toshiba cites significant productivity improvement and area reduction as key factors in choosing Focus

Portland, Oregon - May 19, 2004 - FishTail Design Automation today announced that Toshiba's System LSI Division in Kawasaki, Japan has purchased the company's Focus product, a tool for generating false and multi-cycle paths, for use in its System LSI chip-implementation projects.

"We continually run into problems with incomplete timing constraints during chip-implementation," stated Masato Nagamatsu, senior manager from Toshiba. "Prior to Focus, we had to manually sift through timing reports and establish whether timing problems were real. This was a tedious, error-prone and time consuming task, taking several weeks. By deploying Focus, we expect to be able to significantly reduce the time we spend during timing closure."

"In addition to the productivity improvements, on a 300K gate design being implemented, we also saw a 7% reduction in random-logic area through the use of Focus," Nagamatsu continued. "The area reduction was made possible because of the false-paths identified by Focus."

"Having a company the caliber of Toshiba as an early customer is a significant testimony to the benefits of Focus," stated Noboru Itoh, Deputy General Manager of SSE/SC HighTech, FishTail's recently signed distributor in Japan. "The prospects in Japan for a product such as this are tremendous - the customers we are talking with are in the midst of improving their timing closure flow and Focus addresses this problem without competition."

To view the product:
Visit FishTail at the Design Automation Conference in San Diego, California June 7-10, booth #4843. To schedule a suite presentation, please visit http://www.fishtail-da.com/dac_reg/main.php or call (503) 598-2210.

About Focus
FishTail's Focus™ product solves the time-consuming problem of poor chip-implementation results because of missing timing exceptions by identifying false and multi-cycle paths early in the design cycle - before virtual prototyping and logic synthesis. Using only the synthesizable description and clock definitions, Focus automatically generates the timing exceptions for the design in standard SDC file format for use by downstream implementation tools.

About Sumisho Electronics Co., Ltd. (SSE) / SC HighTech Unit
SSE is one of the foremost IT Solution Providers founded in 1975 in Japan and a public company whose stock is listed on JASDAQ. SC HighTech is a business unit in SSE that specializes in Electronic Design Automation (EDA) software for semiconductor design. In addition to contributing to the growth and prosperity of the semiconductor industry, the company boasts abundant experience and expertise in the field and provides customers with superior, comprehensive technical support. For more information about SSE and SC HighTech, please visit the company's website at www.sse.co.jp or www.sch.sse.co.jp.

About FishTail Design Automation
Founded in 2002, FishTail Design Automation has set its sights on tackling the difficult problem of precise constraints on chip timing - the area where the success or failure of a design is ultimately determined. The company's patent-pending technology improves chip implementation by automatically identifying exceptions to single-cycle clocking from RTL descriptions. FishTail is privately funded. For more information about FishTail and Focus, please visit the company's website at www.fishtail-da.com.