Monterey Design Opens Research
and Development Center in Armenia

SUNNYVALE, Calif. — May 6, 2003 — Monterey Design Systems announced today the opening of a research and development center at Viasphere Technopark in Yerevan, Armenia under the name of Monterey Arset. The center employs over thirty top scientists, many of whom have advanced degrees in electrical engineering and computer science.

“We were very impressed with the quality of technical talent available in Armenia and decided to take advantage of that talent pool by opening this R&D center,” said Jacques Benkoski, president and CEO of Monterey Design. “With the help of Viasphere, we were able to staff the center very quickly with top-notch researchers and plan to aggressively expand our activities there in the future.”

“We are very pleased to welcome Monterey to Viasphere Technopark, our advanced R&D facility,” said Tony Moroyan, Chairman of Viasphere Group which owns the Technopark. “Having a world-class technology company such as Monterey demonstrates the desirability of our center for high technology research and development. Viasphere has been very active to incubate and make available the team to enable Monterey’s operation in Armenia.”

About Monterey Design Systems
Monterey Design Systems provides electronic design automation software that enables integrated circuit designers to take their circuits from completed logic design to manufacturing ready output. Built to handle the most demanding semiconductor process requirements, the company's products - IC Wizard™ hierarchical design planner, Sonar™ physical synthesis and prototyper, and Dolphin® physical implementation system - combine to provide the most streamlined physical design flow on the market. Monterey Design Systems 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. Key customers include Toshiba, LSI Logic, STMicroelectronics, Fujitsu Ltd., Flextronics Semiconductor, and NEC Electronics. Monterey Design Systems is located at 894 Ross Drive, Sunnyvale, CA 94089-1443, tel: 1.408.747.7370, fax: 1.408.747.7377, http://www.montereydesign.com

About Viasphere
Situated in the Silicon Valley, Viasphere provides strategic advantages to multinational and start-up companies. Viasphere has a proven track record in incubating and accelerating high technology start-ups. Viasphere Technopark, a wholly owned subsidiary, is the first and well recognized commercial Technopark in the Republic of Armenia housing over 300 professionals and several high technology companies active in diverse disciplines including semiconductors, intellectual property, electronic design automation, enterprise software, network management, ITC, platforms and applications. Viasphere is located in Sunnyvale, California, tel: 408-774-9261, fax: 408-774-9945, http://www.viasphere.com

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Monterey, Monterey Design Systems, Dolphin, Sonar, and IC Wizard are registered trademarks or trademarks of Monterey Design Systems. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners

Viasphere and Viasphere Technopark are registered trademarks or trademarks of Viasphere. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.