［Press Release］　4 February 2009

SO-TI Uses Cell/B.E. for High Performance Patent Analysis and Map Creation

SO-TI, Inc. and Fixstars Corporation today announced their collaborative effort to improve the XLUS, SO-TI’s patent information analysis system, using the Cell Broadband Engine™. This effort produced a 15x increase in performance in the creation of ‘patent maps’, a graphical map which showcases the relationship between various patents.

A graphical patent map is used in R&D and Intellectual Property departments for extracting, organizing, and analyzing large volumes of patent information. SO-TI’s XLUS is a web-based patent information analysis software service which offers conceptual searches through natural language. The output is an intuitive, graphical map of associated patents. With its impressive, high degree of accuracy and user-friendly usability, XLUS is found in major precision equipment manufacturers, transport equipment manufacturers, electronic equipment manufacturers, and financial institutions in both Japan and the U.S.

SO-TI chose the Fixstars’ GigaAccel 180, the high-performance Cell computer on a PCIe card, as its preferred hardware platform on which to run XLUS. XLUS is performing 15x faster on the GigaAccel 180 than prior to the collaboration with the Fixstars Cell optimization team. The time required to display 100 patent maps is drastically cut from 15 to just 5 minutes. The combination of GigaAccel 180 and XLUS greatly reduces the time required to create the patent map, thereby increasing efficiency in the workplace.

“XLUS uses the same Non-Linear Least Squares Method as used to create radar graphics,” said Yoshio Takaeda, CEO of SO-TI. “Fixstars’ leading parallel programming skill on the Cell/B.E. realized more than an order of magnitude improvement compared to the existing equivalent of Intel Xeon 2G. It drastically reduced calculation cost. SO-TI is advancing development so that all customers can easily use a totally new information reference method.”

“As XLUS uses double precision arithmetic, the Cell ‘PowerXCell 8i’ on GigaAccel 180 maximizes the optimized performance,” said Yosuke Tamura, CTO of Fixstars. “We anticipate that this improvement in performance will attract new users to XLUS and the Cell/B.E. through SO-TI’s. We are supporting SO-TI with our full and believe that we will offer the innovative service.”

“XLUS” is an analyzing tool which graphically indicates the association between text data from patents or academic papers, in particularly those from Japan and the U.S. The products “XLUS Green” and “XLUS White” handle Japanese published patents, while “XLUS Eagle G” and “XLUS Eagle W” deal with the U.S. patents. Use of the products is simple, enabling anyone to discover industry trends or the general, technical direction of competitive companies.
To learn more about the XLUS, visit: http://so-ti.com/en/products/xlus/

SO-TI is providing the software service based on enhanced ‘XLUS’ for its customers from January

■ About SO-TI

SO-TI provides a unique information analysis method which describes enormous amount of data by method with emphasis on objective and panoramic. In particular, we provide ASP service “XLUS”, and technology analysis and consulting using “XLUS”.

For more information, visit so-ti.com/en

■ About Fixstars Corporation

Fixstars is the pioneering company of the Cell Broadband Engine, high performance multi-core processor. Fixstars enables companies to speed up business by offering astonishing speed and quality software, middleware, OS on Cell/B.E. and hardware equipped Cell/B.E. including the GigaAccel 180 PCIe board with PowerXCell™ 8i, for industries such as Finance, Medical, Manufacturing and Digital media. Founded in 2002, Fixstars is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan with subsidiary Fixstars Solutions in San Jose, CA and Loveland, CO.

For more information, visit www.fixstars.com/en/

“XLUS” is a registered trademark of SO-TI, Inc. “GigaAccel” is a trademark of Fixstars Corporation. Fixstars name and logo are registered trademarks of Fixstars Corporation. “Cell Broadband Engine” and “Cell/B.E.” are trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. All other trademarks and registered trademarks belong to their rights holders. Contents may change without prior notice.

■ Inquiries regarding this press release

Masatoshi Utsubo, COO
SO-TI, Inc.
1-408-390-5854
utsubo@so-ti.com

Yuriko Adachi, Sales Promotion Group’s Public Relation
SO-TI, KK.
+81-3-6231-9215
press@so-ti.com

Ikuko Hasumi, Manager Public Relation
Fixstars Corporation
+81-3-5781-5001
press@fixstars.com