Additional Funding Received to Continue Building Worldwide Presence for the PICO
Algorithmic Synthesis Platform

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – June 3, 2009 – Synfora, Inc., the premier provider of algorithmic synthesis tools for integrated circuit and system designers of large, complex processing applications, today announced that, as a result of its continuing growth and market success, it is expanding its sales team with the addition of three industry veterans: Bruce Costello in the position of Vice President, World Wide Sales; Alok Mehrotra as Director of Sales, North America; and Chris Rottner as Sales Director, Northern Europe. All three positions are newly created, and will help the company more fully address the growing ESL (electronic system level) design market. The company also said that it has secured additional financing, which will allow it to increase its sales presence worldwide, and to continue developing its PICO Platform.

According to industry analyst Gary Smith, “There are three ESL markets that are in the process of reaching maturity: ESL synthesis, software virtual prototype and the architect’s workbench. All three are a standard part of the ESL methodologies being used today.”

“The expansion of our sales capacity is key in continuing to grow our algorithmic synthesis market share,” said Synfora President and CEO Simon Napper. “Bruce, Alok and Chris are top-tier professionals, and are helping us make the PICO Platform the industry standard for delivering productivity through synthesis from the highest level of abstraction along with the best QoR. With a stronger sales force, we’ll be able to deliver our solution more broadly, and reach a wider customer base.”

Sales Team Expansion

As Worldwide Vice President of Sales, Bruce Costello will be responsible for the sales strategy and for ensuring that the company delivers maximum value to the customer. With more than 24 years of sales and business development experience, Mr. Costello has a record of success in developing high-performance teams in a short period of time, both domestically and internationally. His expertise includes strategic planning, recruitment, training and staff development, and field development. He has built and led teams selling a diverse range of software and services, including EDA, mechanical design, project planning, lifecycle management and technical documentation authoring applications, across a broad range of industries, including defense and aerospace, automotive, hi-tech and medical. Prior to joining Synfora, Mr. Costello was Vice President of Sales at Right Hemisphere, the leading provider of enterprise product communication and collaboration solutions. He previously served as Fellow and Vice President of Sales at Cadence Design Systems, and his experience also includes regional sales management at EDS (Electronic Data Systems).

Alok Mehrotra, the new Director of Sales, North America, has more than 19 years of experience in the semiconductor and EDA industries. Before joining Synfora, he was most recently Vice President, Sales, at DFM tools supplier Sagantec, having previously held the same position at SDS (Silicon Design Solutions). Mr. Mehrotra has also served as Director of Sales at Magma Design Automation. Holder of three U.S. patents, Mr. Mehrotra received an MBA from Santa Clara University, California, and an MSEE from SUNY (State University New York), Stony Brook.

Chris Rottner brings 14 years of industry experience to Synfora as the Sales Director, Northern Europe. Mr. Rottner joins the company from Agility Design Solutions, where he served as Sales Manager for EMEAI (Europe, Middle East, Africa and India). In that position, he drove the sales of Agility’s C-based high-level synthesis solutions, and was responsible for setting up the sales channel and driving local marketing activities. Mr. Rottner holds a BEng degree from Salford University in England.

Funding

Based on its successful track record in meeting customer demands and achieving significant growth, including an increase in revenues of 250 percent and corporate agreements with two of the top five semiconductor manufacturers in calendar year 2008, Synfora has secured $2.5 million in additional financing. Synfora will use the new funds to increase its sales presence worldwide, and for new product development and marketing of the company’s PICO Algorithmic Synthesis Platform.

PICO Platform

The PICO Algorithmic Synthesis Platform provides productivity gains by creating application accelerators from an untimed C algorithm at the highest level of abstraction. PICO yields QoR (quality of results) that is competitive with manual design by using a unique parallelizing compiler and multi-level hierarchical abstraction and IP reuse. It offers the highest possible level abstraction for large designs, and has been proven to provide huge productivity gains on the largest production designs, not just on small blocks.

About Synfora

Synfora, Inc. is the premier provider of algorithmic synthesis tools used to design complex systems-on-chips (SoCs) and FPGAs. Synfora’s PICO Platform offers designers of large, complex subsystems productivity gains at the highest-level design abstraction and delivers high QoR.

Synfora serves customers worldwide in the audio, video, imaging, wireless, and security segments of the integrated circuit (IC) design market. The company’s investors are ATA Ventures, Foundation Capital, U.S. Venture Partners, Wafra, and Xilinx. For the latest information on Synfora, please visit http://www.synfora.com.

PR for Synfora – Cayenne Communication LLC
Michelle Clancy, 252-940-0981, michelle.clancy@cayennecom.com