Ultra Communications Delivers Radiation Hardened Fiber Optic Transceivers Using Simucad's PDKs and EDA Tools

VISTA, CA and SANTA CLARA, CA, Oct 28 (MARKET WIRE) --

Ultra Communications, a leader in the development of high performance
fiber optic transceivers for harsh environments, announced today the
successful release of radiation hardened integrated circuits for next
generation fiber optic transceiver applications. The circuits were
designed in a single pass using the EDA tool flow and Process Design Kits
(PDKs) from Simucad, a leading provider of Analog, Mixed-Signal and RF
Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools. The designs were manufactured
at Jazz Semiconductor (Newport Beach, CA) and have been characterized for
pre and post radiation response for use in defense applications.

"Simucad's EDA tool flow and their support for Hardened-By-Design
architecture is crucial to our success. The SmartSpice RadHard simulator
also provided us with excellent predictive results for designing
integrated circuits for multi-gigabit hardened fiber optic transceivers,"
said Joe Ahadian, Vice President of Engineering at Ultra Communications.
"We were able to match Total Ionizing Dose radiation test results to our
SmartSpice RadHard simulations and explore the design corners and their
influence on radiation response in simulation with confidence."

"Simucad's front end tools, Gateway and SmartSpice, together with the back
end tools Expert, Guardian, and HIPEX, provide a very affordable and
complete radiation hardened design flow," said Dr Ivan Pesic, President
and CEO of Simucad. "Our support for organizations like Ultra
Communications, and their important work for our military, has been a
long term commitment from Simucad and this will continue to be our key
focus."

The designs for this effort were supported by The United States Air Force
Research Laboratories (AFRL) Space Vehicles Directorate at Kirtland, AFB
through their Systematic Hierarchal Approach for Radiation hardened
Electronics (SHARE) program. SHARE's objective was to deliver affordable
EDA tools, matched with design kits, to facilitate access to onshore
foundries like Jazz Semiconductor and American Semiconductor (Boise, ID).
The prime contractor for the SHARE effort was L-3 Communications
Electromagnetics & Electronics Division (San Diego, CA).

"The SHARE program was an outstanding collaboration between multiple
US-based integrated circuit design teams, the US Government, and Simucad
to develop a predictive suite of capabilities for the modeling of
radiation effects at domestic foundries," said Chuck Tabbert, Vice
President Sales and Marketing for Ultra Communications. "The Simucad
Process Design Kits and affordable toolset allows small business design
teams to compete on a level playing field in the radiation hardened
integrated circuit design space. This enables Ultra Communications to
access smaller geometry technologies which support our roadmap to
100Gb/sec and above transceiver products for integrated battlefield
networks in both terrestrial and space applications."

"Simucad has over twenty years of experience in developing radiation
hardened technology," said Mark Maurer, Manager of Simucad's Government
Business Division. "We developed SmartSpice RadHard in response to our
customers in the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, contractor
community, and other Government agencies. SmartSpice RadHard fulfills
their requirements to simulate the most complex analog/RF/mixed-signal
circuit, cell, and full chip designs across a spectrum of radiation
environments from near space to nuclear weapons with confidence. The
ability to accurately model single event effects, total dose, dose rate,
prompt dose, and combined environment simulations with no changes to the
foundry supplied model cards and PDKs is an outstanding capability for our
customers."

SmartSpice RadHard is exclusively available to US-based defense
contractors, US Government agencies, and research laboratories that
qualify for access under ITAR regulations.

About Ultra Communications

Ultra Communications (UltraComm) supplies highly compact and robust
photonic components for harsh environment applications, such as
satellites, military airframes, UAV, missiles and cell phone base station
applications. We have developed a hybrid IC and optoelectronic
integration approach that features: Standard planar manufacturing of
photonic packages, Single chip integration of multiple functions --
transmitters, receivers and built-in-test, high speed digital (10 Gbps)
or RF photonic components, ability to optically monitor Vertical Cavity
Surface Emitter Lasers (VCSEL) on a per-channel basis, and operation over
a wide temperature range and in radiation environments. Ultra
Communications is headquartered in Vista, California (in the greater San
Diego area).

Additional information is available on the web at www.ultracomm-inc.com.

The Ultra Communications name and logo are registered trademarks of Ultra
Communications Incorporated.

About Simucad

Simucad Design Automation is a leading provider of simulation and CAD
software tools used for developing analog, mixed-signal, and RF integrated
circuits. Founded in 2004 as a spin-off from Silvaco International, the
company delivers products for circuit simulation, custom IC layout and
verification, interconnect modeling, digital simulation, and IP
characterization. The company provides a complete PDK-based design flow
with interfaces to third-party design platforms.

Simucad has a worldwide presence inherited from Silvaco's twenty years of
business and is preparing for an IPO.

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Contact:
Dr. Ivan Pesic
(408) 567-1000
www.simucad.com

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