New board composition at Accent

Accent's new Chairman of the Board and an independent Board member is Piero Martinotti, who also serves on the Board of three other technology companies in Europe and the USA. Until 2003 Piero was Vice President of STMicroelectronics responsible for its New Ventures Group which was created to identify, evaluate and incubate opportunities for new business development. Professor Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli, the Edgar L & Harold H Buttner Chair of Electrical Engineering at UC Berkeley in the USA and an original founder of Accent as well as a co-founder of the two primary EDA companies, Cadence Design Systems and Synopsys, has also joined the Board in an independent capacity. Accent's CEO, Massimo Vanzi, has also been appointed to the Board of Directors and, at the same time, the company has revealed that Pasquale Pistorio, the former President and CEO of STMicroelectronics, has joined the Board to represent the interests of a group of angel investors. As a highly successful champion of the European microelectronics industry, Pasquale Pistorio brings a wealth of expertise, knowledge and contacts to Accent. In addition to his involvement with Accent, Pasquale Pistorio holds major Board assignments in Europe and Far East. Completing the new Board of Directors are representatives from Accent's three major shareholders: Jean Schmitt, a Managing Partner of Sofinnova Partners; Marco Vismara, CEO of Cape Natexis; and R. L. Smith McKeithen, Senior Vice President of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. In announcing the composition of its new Board of Directors, Accent has also announced that the focus of its future strategic direction will be the realisation of microelectronics-based products for its customers. “This market is about more than design services suppliers. It is about product realisation solutions and partners," said Massimo Vanzi, CEO of Accent S.p.A. “Clients don't want to just outsource their design work, they want an innovative and credible partner who can provide a complete solution to realise their product concepts and bring them to volume production. Our product realisation solutions have been devised to fulfil this role for non-electronics as well as electronics companies both large and small." Accent will draw upon the new Board's depth of experience and expertise to help meet its global expansion goals. Later this year Accent will enter the North American market with a direct presence and also has advanced plans for a local presence in the Asian market where many of its fabrication partners reside. With a customer base that already includes several of the world's major IDM semiconductor companies and a considerable number of the highly innovative, electronics industry start-ups, in targeting the global product design and realisation market Accent expects to attract business from a broader range of electronic companies at the chipless IP, fabless semiconductor and system level, as well as non-electronics companies that need access to electronics expertise in order to further innovate their products. In this respect, Accent has invested heavily in its own ARM® license for the ARM7TDMI®, the ARM 926EJ-S™ and the ARM1136J-S™ processors and a variety of platform-based product realisation solutions based on ARM technology, sensor and RF technology amongst others to provide a complete, turnkey service that covers the entire electronics supply chain from architectural definition through to the delivery of finished products. Accent will also draw upon the new Board's expertise to help successfully develop additional technologically innovative solutions to expedite the product realisation process.