NEWS RELEASE

ASC is awarded SBIR Phase II Grant by National Science Foundation

July 1, 1998 - WINDHAM, New Hampshire – Alternative Systems Concepts Inc. (also known as ASC), headquartered here, was awarded the second phase of a grant to develop methods and tools to insert boundary scan test into embedded cores. The project will be carried out in partnership with Northeastern University. This a two year program slated to be completed on June 1, 2000.

ASC was founded in 1990 with the mission to provide hardware description language (HDL)-driven synthesis design tools to the electronics engineer. Its VBIT family of boundary scan design tools has been marketed and sold for many years by Mentor Graphics Corporation under the name BSDArchitect™. ASC is privately held and self-funded. More information on ASC and its product offerings can be found on its Web Site at http://www.ascinc.com

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