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Silicon Design Systems Appoints Naeem Zafar as President and Chief Executive Officer

Posted on: Tuesday, 24 June 2003, 06:00 CDT

CUPERTINO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 24, 2003--Silicon Design Systems, Inc., (SDS), provider of industry-leading physical design services and EDA solutions that deliver highly optimized complex Integrated Circuits (ICs) in record time, today announced the appointment of Naeem Zafar as its president & Chief Executive Officer, replacing interim CEO Davidi Gilo who will remain Chairman of the Board. Zafar brings over 22 years of high tech experience with him including an impressive track record of leading emerging technology companies from product development to profitability.

"I am very excited to be back in the EDA industry where I spent most of my professional life," said Zafar. "The EDA industry is unique as it touches the most complex and advanced electronic designs that impact everyone's life in some way. The problem that EDA solves will never disappear and that makes it a fascinating and challenging industry to be in. With over 30 successful tape-outs of complex chips for companies like Microsoft and Cisco, I look forward to transitioning SDS to not only provide design services, but to commercialize the proprietary technology developed by our talented engineering team."

Prior to Silicon Design Systems, Zafar was the President and CEO of Veridicom, Inc., in Sunnyvale, California, a developer of fingerprint sensor chips and authentication software to provide fingerprint authentication platform to PC OEMs, embedded solution providers and systems integrators. At Veridicom, Zafar hired and built a strong team and raised over $14M in funding to restart the company. He also defined the strategic direction for a developing market in biometric security and personal authentication, completing several strategic partnerships and an acquisition of a European software company.

Zafar is no stranger to the Electronic Design Automation (EDA) industry, having spent 11 years with Quickturn Design Systems where he last served as the Vice President of Worldwide Marketing and helped to take the company public in 1993, growing it to over 400 employees and over $150M in revenue. He stayed with the company until it was sold to Cadence Design Systems in 1999.

Prior to Quickturn, Zafar was a co-founder & Vice President of Engineering with XCAT, Inc., a company that developed simulation accelerators (specialized computers to speed up logic and fault simulation process). The company was eventually sold to Gateway Design Automation (subsequently Cadence Design Systems) in Lowell, MA. Zafar also held the position of Principal Research Scientist & Technical Program Director with Honeywell Systems & Research Center, Minneapolis, MN, a key lab innovating in the areas of VLSI design, signal and image processing architectures and systems with military applications.

"Naeem comes to SDS with strong expertise that spans strategic and tactical planning, marketing, sales, product development and engineering disciplines," said Davidi Gilo, Chairman of Silicon Design Systems. "Adding his extensive industry experience to our executive team will enable the company to create the right framework for success, as we further strengthen our ability to deliver against both our technology and financial goals."

About Silicon Design Systems, Inc.

Silicon Design Systems (SDS) provides industry-leading physical design services and EDA solutions to deliver highly optimized complex ICs in record time. By automating custom IC implementation techniques, SDS delivers dramatic improvements in chip-area, performance, power consumption and flexibility over the traditional cell-based solutions. The company's unique "automated custom" design technology is scaleable, proven and mature, with more than 30 design tape-outs delivered to major customers. To learn more about SDS' design technology and services, visit: www.SiliconDS.com.

Silicon Design System, SDS, the Silicon Design System logo, and SiliconMaster are registered trademarks of Silicon Design Systems. All other names mentioned are trademarks, registered trademarks, or service marks of their respective companies.

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