Monterey Design adds Nokia Venture Partners as New Investor

SUNNYVALE, California – August 28, 2003 - Monterey Design Systems today announced that Nokia Venture Partners and Information Technology Ventures have made investments in the company. These new investments bring the total series II funding round to $15 million.

“Monterey is quickly emerging as the technology pace setter in design planning and prototyping,” said W. Peter Buhl, partner at Nokia Venture Partners. “Effective planning and prototyping leads to smaller, faster, less power-hungry chips, more predictable design schedules, and lower engineering costs.”

Taking IC Design to the Next Level

Monterey design planning and prototyping software is already being used in seven of the top ten semiconductor companies worldwide to handle their most demanding multi-million gate chips. Effective planning and prototyping is especially important for consumer and communications companies, which require efficient design of multi-million gate chips.

Monterey offers a comprehensive portfolio of technology that enables IC designers to deal with the challenges posed by advanced process technologies, chip size and complexity, and rapidly escalating engineering and manufacturing costs. Monterey is the only commercial EDA vendor to offer a complete silicon virtual prototyping environment comprising hierarchical design planning and accurate silicon performance estimation capabilities. IC designers who are faced with integrating disparate IP blocks, bloated die size due to unexpected routing congestion, and top-level closure on hierarchical designs will benefit from the planning and prototyping capabilities available in the Monterey silicon virtual prototyping tool set.

Monterey customers have achieved results such as: reducing die size by 30% or more by refining the chip architecture; eliminating entire routing layers; evaluating multiple process technologies in real-time to determine the best process for their needs.

“With this additional investment we are gaining two things,” said Jacques Benkoski, president and CEO of Monterey. “We get the capital we need to fully exploit our technology leadership position in planning and prototyping, and we benefit from adding another premier investor to Monterey.”

Previously announced investors in this round include Sevin Rosen Funds, Excelsior Venture Partners III LLC, RHO Management Trust, Lucent Venture Partners, Kaufman LLC, and Vertex Partners.

About Monterey Design Systems

Monterey’s patented Progressive Refinement technology provides design teams with valuable information about the final physical implementation very early in the design cycle. Design decisions such as the choice of process technology, the structure of the global power network, the choice of critical IP, and the chip-level design plan ultimately determine the success or failure of a chip design project. With Monterey Calypso planning, prototyping, and Dolphin implementation tools, design teams can make these decisions with confidence.

Customers have been taping out chips using Monterey planning and prototyping tools for over three years. Today, Monterey offers the only production-proven silicon virtual prototyping tool available from any source. Seven of the top ten semiconductor companies in the world are using Monterey planning and prototyping tools in their production flows.

Key Dolphin and Calypso customers include STMicroelectronics, Toshiba Corporation, Fujitsu Limited, NEC Electronics, and LSI Logic. Monterey is privately held and partners with other leading EDA companies, such as Cadence (NYSE:CDN) and Synopsys (Nasdaq:SNPS), to ensure interoperability in all existing design flows. Monterey Design Systems is located at 894 Ross Drive, Sunnyvale, CA 94089-1443, tel: 1.408.747.7370, fax: 1.408.747.7377. To learn more, visit http://www.montereydesign.com.

About Nokia Venture Partners

Nokia Venture Partners is a leading global venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, California. Backed by a number of value add limited partners, the fund leads investments in early stage mobile technology companies around the world. Launched in 1998, Nokia Venture Partners has a strong track record of leveraging its combined resources, experience and contacts to help build successful mobile businesses. The firm also has offices in Washington DC, London, Helsinki, Seoul, Hong Kong and Tokyo. For more information, visit http://www.nokiaventurepartners.com.