VSIA Quality IP Metric Now Includes Verification IP Extension

WAKEFIELD, MA--(Marketwire - June 5, 2007) - The VSI Alliance (VSIA), the leading IP standards body for the electronics industry, today announced the public release of Quality IP (QIP) Metric version 4.0, which now includes the verification IP (VIP) extension. Industry-leading companies including Cadence Design Systems, Denali Software, EDA Centrum, Freescale Semiconductor, LSI, Mentor Graphics, Synopsys, and UMC all participated in the development of the VIP extension. The QIP Metric version 4.0 is now available for free download at www.vsi.org.

With the addition of the verification IP extension, the QIP Metric has become a comprehensive platform for measuring IP quality, easing IP integration through better communication between vendor, integrator, and foundry while enabling and managing IP risk assessment. For VIP, version 4.0 includes quality metrics for drivers and responders, monitors, bus functional models and stimuli generators.

"The expansion of SoCs has fueled the need for these chips to handle increasing numbers of communication protocols and interfaces that allow IP cores to talk to each other. This requires the use of verification IP (VIP) for verifying that an SoC complies with the various on-chip communications standards that it uses," said Kenneth Larsen, Verification IP Quality Chairperson, VSIA, Director of Marketing Strategy, Mentor Graphics. "VSIA has addressed the need for increasing IP Quality, including VIP, through the development of a standardized, objective platform for measuring quality of an IP core throughout the design process, from IP vendor, to IP integrator to the foundry."

The VSIA QIP Metric currently includes vendor assessment, soft IP, hard IP and verification IP spreadsheets. Recent upgrades to the Metric have added easy-to-use graphic representations, and other enhancements based on industry feedback. Since becoming publicly available, the VSIA QIP Metric has been downloaded by hundreds of companies. Additional industry support of the QIP Metric can be found at http://vsi.org/pillars/qipmetricquotes.htm.

QIP Metric Logos

Companies can promote their QIP Metric status through the use of the VSIA QIP Metric logos. These logos are graphic symbols identifying IP Vendors that have gone through vendor qualification (QIP Metric Rated logo) or IP Integrators that require QIP Metric scores from their vendors (QIP Metric Adopter logo). QIP Metric logos are available for free download from the VSIA website at http://vsi.org/pillars/quidelines.htm.

About VSIA

The VSI Alliance (VSIA) is an open, international organization that includes representatives from all segments of the SoC industry: system houses, semiconductor vendors, Electronic Design Automation (EDA) companies, and Intellectual Property (IP) providers. VSIA's mission is to dramatically enhance the productivity of the SoC design community by providing leading-edge commercial and technical solutions and insight into the development, integration and reuse of IP. VSIA has wide industry participation from companies around the world. Membership is open to any company with an interest in the development and promotion of business solutions and open standards used in the design of Systems-on-Chip. For more information, visit the VSIA website at www.vsi.org, or e-mail to info@vsi.org.

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