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Zuken Joins Open Core Protocol International Partnership
(OCP-IP)

PORTLAND, ORE. — April 12, 2005 — Open Core Protocol International Partnership (OCP-IP) today announces that Zuken Inc. has joined the organization. Utilizing OCP technology allows Zuken’s customers to reduce design times, risks and costs and quickly introduce highly competitive products. Zuken's customers include the world's top electronics manufacturers that serve markets as diverse as computing, networking, image processing, and semiconductor.

The addition of Zuken to the membership roster builds upon the tremendous support that OCP-IP has already enjoyed throughout Japan and adds to local membership including Semiconductor Technology Academic Research Center (STARC), Governing Steering Committee member Toshiba, Yamaha, and FueTrek.

Zuken helps optimizes the design and manufacturing processes of electronics companies worldwide. The company holds a leading global share of the PCB/MCM/HIC software market in the field of electronic design automation (EDA), and is expanding their portfolio to include e-PLM and SoC. Zuken’s SoC solution includes IP, design service, verification tool and ASIC. The company is headquartered in Japan with development, sales and support centers in 10 countries including the US, Germany, UK and France.

Zuken will use OCP in their IP core products and future SoC design platform so that Zuken’s customer can incorporate interface cores such as PCI efficiently in his SoC. Zuken has been developing and distributing IP cores such as USB, Gigabit Ethernet MAC and PCI Express as a part of its solution for SoC designers for many years. However, to bring out their IP’s maximum functions and performance in the user design, Zuken had to adjust internal bus interface of its IP to every user design each time. To eliminate this time consuming work and with the aim of easier plug-and play IP, Zuken is developing SoC platform, where users can embed IP in their design easily using OCP.

“Zuken is a premiere provider of solutions that maximize the efficiency of the design and manufacturing processes of electronics companies around the globe,” said Ian Mackintosh, president of OCP-IP. "We are delighted to have them adopt and endorse OCP and we look forward to working with them in the future.”

OCP-IP members receive free training and support, free software tools, and free documentation, enabling them to focus on the challenges of SoC design. Leveraging OCP-IP’s infrastructure eliminates the need to internally design, document, train and evolve a proprietary standard and support tools, freeing up critical resources for the real design work and providing enormous cost savings.


About Zuken 
Established in 1976, Zuken has evolved into a provider of solutions that maximize the efficiency of the design and manufacturing processes of electronics companies around the world. Zuken holds a leading global share of the PCB/MCM/HIC software market in the field of electronic design automation (EDA). In addition to its longstanding experience as a provider of innovative solutions for PCB design, Zuken’s expanded portfolio encompasses proven solutions for the development of information technology (IT) infrastructures and SoC design. Listed on Level 1 of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the company is headquartered in Japan and has development, sales and support centers in 10 countries including the US, Germany, UK and France. Zuken's customers include the world's top 30 electronics manufacturers from automotive to aerospace, communications to consumer electronics, and medical to military.

About OCP-IP 
The OCP International Partnership Association, Inc. (OCP-IP), formed in 2001, promotes and supports the Open Core Protocol (OCP) as the complete socket standard ensuring rapid creation and integration of interoperable virtual components. OCP-IP’s Governing Steering Committee participants are: Nokia [NYSE: NOK], Texas Instruments [NYSE: TXN], STMicroelectronics [NYSE: STM], Toshiba Semiconductor Group (including Toshiba America TAEC), and Sonics. OCP-IP is a non-profit corporation delivering the first fully supported, openly licensed, core-centric protocol comprehensively fulfilling system-level integration requirements. The OCP facilitates IP core reusability and reduces design time, risk, and manufacturing costs for SoC designs. VSIA endorses the OCP socket, and OCP-IP is affiliated with the VSI Alliance. For additional background and membership information, visit www.OCPIP.org.

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