Distributor Selling FPGA Software

Electronic News, May 8, 2000 by Gale Morrison

Henderson, Nev.-based Aldec Inc. reports that Insight Electronics LLC is going to sell Aldec's Active-HDL XE (Xilinx Edition) product. "Adding Active-HDL XE to our lineup greatly compliments our Xilinx device offering. Users now are able to purchase both industry leading FPGA devices and HDL simulation tools from a single source," said Tim Barber, Insight marketing director. Active-HDL XE is available in two configurations from Insight. Both include design entry, Xilinx Foundation Series schematic import, testbench generation, VHDL and Verilog behavioral, structural, and timing simulation, and a 12-month maintenance contract for $2,995. Twenty-day free trials are available from the company's Web sites. Insight is a top-five distributor that is part of Santa Clara-based VEBA Electronics Group.

Novas Marketing Lightens Up

Novas Inc., Santa Clara, Calif., is going to have a little fun with its latest marketing initiative: It will give away a dark blue Volkswagen New Beetle to the IC designer with the best "debug war story." Calling it the "Bug-Free" Giveaway, Novas will give away the car in September after making sure it is seen driving Silicon Valley's highways and byways. Scott Sander, Novas' vice president of product marketing and corporate support, primarily will drive the Bug during its Silicon Valley tour, but he said sales folks will have it out and about, too.

Bug Free or Not, Watch Avant!

Despite the levity, Novas surely is watching its back with Avant!'s report last week that it is moving Nova-ExploreRTL further into Novas territory. The Fremont, Calif.-based top-five EDA firm is extending Nova-ExploreRTL into automated checking of HDL coding guidelines to allow user definition of custom or proprietary rules. Nova-Explore RTL is the entry point to Avant!'s Milkyway-based, SinglePass design flow.