Nuvation Announces Membership in Xilinx XPERTS Program

San Jose, Calif., January 22, 2001 — Nuvation, the leading engineering design firm in Silicon Valley, today announced that it has been accepted in the XPERTS Program of Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX ), the leader in programmable logic solutions. Xilinx established the XPERTS Program to provide it's customers with access to a worldwide network of certified design consultants proficient in Xilinx Platform FPGAs, firmware, and IP core integration. These 3rd party design centers have extensive expertise and experience with Xilinx technology in various vertical applications, such as DSP, communications and networking, video and image processing, system I/O interfaces, and home networking.

As the complexity of technology increases, it becomes mission-critical for technology companies to access immediate embedded system design expertise. Over the past few years, this requirement has fueled a growing trend among leading technology companies to outsource PLD designs. Nuvation has built a reputation as the leading Silicon Valley engineering design house for complex PLD design and integration. Nuvation has been recognized for its skill diversity, flexible resources and ability to deliver solutions where time-to-market is crucial.

"Xilinx recognizes that high-tech companies require specialized skills and immediate resources to keep pace with today's market dynamics - services the XPERTS Program provides," said Jing Ma, staff technical marketing engineer at Xilinx. "We are excited to have Nuvation as our newest XPERTS member given their solid reputation as one of the premier Silicon Valley engineering companies and are confident they will provide our clients with much-needed design services."

Michael Worry, Nuvation's CEO, said of the Xilinx partnership, "Xilinx has been a significant force in the semiconductor industry for a long time and we are thrilled to be a member of XPERTS Program. Together we can amplify the value statement of outsourced engineering, to the benefit of our mutual clients."

About Nuvation

Nuvation is a leading Electronics Design Services (EDS) firm that provides ASIC, FPGA, board, and firmware design services for the embedded systems industry. Nuvation's design experience spans industries such as Communications, Consumer Electronics, Medical , and Security/Defense. Founded in 1997 and based in San Jose, California, Nuvation's customers include a number of notable companies such as Altera, Lucent, HP, JDS Uniphase, Infineon, LeapFrog, SanDisk, Finisar, and Trimble Navigation. Nuvation is a wholly-owned subsidiary of IAR Systems (OMX:IAR). More information is available at www.nuvation.com

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Contacts:

Chris Hallahan
VP Sales & Marketing
Nuvation
408-228-5580 x122
chris.hallahan@nuvation.com