Georgia Tech has announced an agreement with Agilent Technologies Inc. to supply its electronic design automation (EDA) software, support, and training to a new center at the Georgia Institute of Technology's Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC) in Atlanta. This donation, valued at just over $13 million, is one of the largest that Agilent has made to a single university.

The new, dedicated Agilent EDA Simulation Center will provide radio frequency (RF) and microwave system and circuit design instruction and additional software design capabilities to Georgia Tech students, and will provide licenses at no cost or at greatly discounted rates to start-ups in wireless communications design at GEDC.

The venture, located at Georgia Tech's Technology Square, is expected to be fully operational by year's end.

"We are excited about Agilent's participation with us. The company's EDA tools help us continue to advance the technology and support our students, as well as to encourage and support commercial innovation," said Joy Laskar, director of the GEDC and Schlumberger Chair in Microelectronics in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). "We also want to contribute to the success of other academic and non-profit institutions through sharing our experience in this partnership with Agilent, and we are making plans to release large portions of work using the Agilent EEsof EDA platforms for academic use."

The deal marks a significant expansion of the long-standing relationship between Georgia Tech and Agilent and is a key part of Agilent's strategy to develop extensive relationships with key universities worldwide through the newly created Agilent EEsof EDA University Alliance program. It includes a tailored, three-year custom license program to provide access to the complete line of Agilent EEsof EDA tools to start-up companies during their critical formative periods.

"This is one of the largest academic donations of Agilent EEsof products to a single institution to date," said Jim McGillivary, vice president and general manager with Agilent's EEsof EDA division. "We realize that universities and startup incubator programs play a crucial role in pushing the limits of EDA tools. They consistently ask for and expect Agilent to offer integrated and leading simulation technology in all areas, and we are pleased to support their efforts."

Academic uses of the Agilent EEsof Simulation Center at GEDC will focus on Agilent EEsof's Advanced Design System (ADS), the 3D Electromagnetic Design System (EMDS) 3D EM simulator and the AMDS simulator that incorporates antenna EM simulation technology recently acquired by Agilent. The center will also be the world's largest academic installation of Agilent's Golden Gate simulator in a parallel processor environment. Golden Gate offers the ability to simulate complex CMOS RFIC designs, including complete network parasitic elements, in production scale SOC implementations. Initial plans include a 60 parallel core configuration.

"We are grateful for Agilent's continued support of GEDC and ECE. By using these specialized tools on a regular basis, students will have important technical concepts enhanced and reinforced that they are learning in our electronics and electromagnetics courses. Upon graduation, our students will be ready to actively contribute to their employers in academia and industry," said Gary S. May, Steve W. Chaddick School Chair of Georgia Tech's ECE.

"Georgia Tech is uniquely positioned within our Agilent EEsof University Alliance program to expand research and development activities in tandem with Agilent EEsof products," said Todd Cutler, product marketing manager with Agilent's EEsof EDA division. "The energy, enthusiasm and drive of academics and small companies spark development of new RF and microwave design innovations that our enterprise customers can adopt and run with. It's really exciting for all of us."

Agilent also plans to offer customer training at the GEDC's Agilent EDA Simulation Center.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the EDA Simulation Center at the GEDC in Atlanta is planned for October 30, 2007 at 4:30 p.m. ET. The event will take place at the Technology Square Research Building, located at 85 5th Street, on the Georgia Tech campus.

Additional information about Agilent's EDA software offerings is available at www.agilent.com/find/eesof.

About Agilent Technologies
Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) is the world's premier measurement company and a technology leader in communications, electronics, life sciences and chemical analysis. The company's 19,000 employees serve customers in more than 110 countries. Agilent had net revenue of $5.0 billion in fiscal year 2006. Information about Agilent is available on the Web at www.agilent.com.

About the Georgia Institute of Technology
The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the nation's premiere research universities. Ranked seventh among U.S. News & World Report's top public universities, Georgia Tech's 17,000 students are enrolled in its Colleges of Architecture, Computing, Engineering, Liberal Arts, Management and Sciences. Tech is among the nation's top producers of women and African-American engineers. The Institute offers research opportunities to both undergraduate and graduate students and is home to more than 100 interdisciplinary units plus the Georgia Tech Research Institute.

About the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
The School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) is the largest of nine schools and departments in the College of Engineering and the largest individual school at the Georgia Institute of Technology. All ECE undergraduate and graduate programs are in the top 10 of the most recent college rankings by U.S. News & World Report. More than 2,300 students are enrolled in the School's graduate and undergraduate programs, and in the last academic year, 712 degrees were awarded.

More than 110 ECE faculty members are involved in 10 areas of research and education - bioengineering, computer engineering, digital signal processing, electric power, electromagnetics, electronic design and applications, microsystems, optics and photonics, systems and controls, and telecommunications.

About the Georgia Electronic Design Center
The Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC) supports world-class research, active and solution-oriented industry collaboration, intellectual property generation and revenue generating commercialization efforts. GEDC attracts funding support from federal laboratories and industry partners. GEDC's research is broadly focused on fostering technology at the intersection of today's communications applications: wireless/RF, wired/copper and fiber channels. The activities of GEDC provide the state of Georgia the opportunity to grow and expand its technology leadership in the design of broadband (high-speed) communications systems, devices and integrated circuits.

The Center is specifically focused on enabling the mobile Internet with innovative research on mixed-signal systems that are at the boundary between telecommunications, microelectronics, analog/RF and sensing technologies. These efforts produce partnerships with industry that attract new jobs to the state and support smaller, start-up companies that create new jobs for Georgians. Additional information about Georgia Tech and GEDC is available at www.gatech.edu and www.gedcenter.org.

Media Relations Contacts: John Toon, Research News and Publications Office (404-894-6986); E-mail: (jtoon@gatech.edu) or Jackie Nemeth, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (404-894-2906); E-mail: (jackie.nemeth@ece.gatech.edu).