Sophia Systems announces Development Tools support for "Cell" with the technical support provided by Toshiba

Japan - April 12th, 2006 - Sophia Systems (CEO: Tasuku Kashihira, JASDAQ: 6942) today announced that it will provide essential design tools for the development environment supporting the "Cell Broadband Engine" (Cell), the next generation high performance microprocessor jointly developed by Toshiba Corporation (Toshiba), IBM Corporation, Sony Corporation and Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.

With technical support from Toshiba, Sophia Systems will provide development tools for Cell, including a JTAG emulator, from Q3 2006.

Cell's breakthrough multi-core architecture and ultra high-speed communications capabilities deliver vastly improved, real-time response for entertainment and rich media applications. Cell's wide ranging applicability will extend from industrial applications to digital consumer applications. (Source: Toshiba Press Release issued on 8 February, 2005)

Sophia's development tool product line-up supporting Cell includes: the EJ-Debug JTAG emulator, and and new Eclipse-based Watchpoint debugger. Sophia Systems is currently developing an Eclipse-based debugger and IDE (integrated development environment) that will allow for easier debugging and will also support the GNU compiler.

Going forward, Sophia Systems will provide a debugger for Linux application in order to support the development of products running on the Linux OS. These Sophia tools will allow initial installation support of hardware, boot program debugging, and a debug environment for application software on the driver/middleware/Linux kernel level.

Sophia Systems has been cooperating with Toshiba to build the development environment for Toshiba's Media embedded Processor (MeP) and other microcontrollers. Sophia Systems considers it a top-priority to deliver high-quality, better products to the market as a leading company to support embedded development globally.

Commenting on Sophia Systems' announcement, Mitsuo Saito, Chief Fellow of Toshiba's Semiconductor Company, said, "Cell will bring enormous development strengths and flexibility to the many manufacturers who will use its broadband capabilities to create new products and services. We welcome Sophia Systems' support for Cell, and its development of powerful tools that will contribute to the development environment. We will continue to work with Sophia Systems to assure that our customers can achieve fast, reliable development of exciting, innovative systems"

"Close technology cooperation with Toshiba means that we can provide leading edge debugging solutions in a timely manner that will support Cell." stated Tasuku Kashihira, CEO, Sophia Systems Co., Ltd. "We are happy that those engineers on the front end of development will be able to take full advantage of a shortened development period."

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