Xicor and Cadence Team Up to Develop Mixed-Signal Design Environment - Company Business and Marketing

Cambridge Telcom Report, Nov 1, 1999

Xicor, Inc. and Cadence Design Systems, Inc., the world's leading supplier of electronic design products and services, Monday announced the signing of a three-year, $3 million agreement in which Cadence will develop a comprehensive custom design environment for the advancement of Xicor's mixed-signal design technology.

Cadence will provide technology and methodology services to improve time-to-market for the mixed-signal products that are becoming a greater percentage of Xicor's business.

Xicor selected Cadence for its best-in-class electronic design automation (EDA) software and its record of providing complete solutions enabling companies to create new designs as well as enhance existing designs. The methodology that accompanies this technology is an extremely important and often overlooked component, and requires well-designed and sophisticated process flows as well as tools.

"We are excited about this venture with Cadence because it greatly enhances our own design capabilities," said Bruce Gray, president of Xicor. "This investment will help us leverage our integrated circuit (IC) design resources to create more sophisticated intellectual property and higher value for our customers and shareholders. It augments Xicor's new strategic thrust into several important mixed-signal market segments."

"We are pleased at the opportunity to work with Xicor on this project of creating a front-to-back mixed-signal design environment," said Adriaan Ligtenberg, senior vice president of methodology services at Cadence. "This announcement exemplifies how Cadence provides our customers with an integrated set of leading-edge tools and design methodologies to create a design environment that increases overall productivity and enables our customers to bring products to market faster."

Cadence will provide Xicor with the Cadence Automated Custom Physical Design (ACPD) methodology as part of a complete solution spanning design creation to design implementation. ACPD automates the custom physical design process at all levels and accelerates design productivity by 4X to 100X. Cadence will also develop and deploy the process design kit, a qualified library of primitives (the schematic symbols, simulation models, parameterized cells and rule decks) serving as a foundation for Xicor's custom mixed-signal design infrastructure.

Xicor, Inc. designs, develops, manufactures and sells nonvolatile in-the-system programmable products which retain information even when the system is turned off or power is inadvertently lost. Xicor's product line includes digitally controlled potentiometers (XDCPs@), system management ICs, and standard and secure memory ICs.

Xicor product, corporate and financial information is readily accessible on the worldwide web at http://www.xicor.com.

Cadence is the largest supplier of electronic design automation products, methodology services, and design services used to accelerate and manage the design of semiconductors, computer systems, networking and telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics and a variety of other electronics-based products. With more than 4,000 employees and 1998 annual sales of $1.3 billion, Cadence has sales offices, design centers, and research facilities around the world. The company is headquartered in San Jose, Calif. More information about the company, its products and services may be obtained from the worldwide web at http://www.cadence.com