Design Software

Electronic News, Nov 15, 1999 by Gale Morrison

Escalade Changing Emphasis

In the last few months, we've really changed our emphasis," said Jean-Pierre Braun, president and chief executive officer of Escalade Inc., Santa Clara, Calif., a company that for several years has tried to promote the use of graphical representations of chip design.

"We're not going to try to change the world from the outside. We realize that the whole world is committed to RTL texts," Braun said. Escalade will continue with its graphical representation methodology, but now by embracing universal design languages, he added.

Braun says the company's graphical entry tool, DesignBook, still has an important place, though. This is especially true in the case of internal design team efforts to unify the company design flow. Braun said Escalade has done consulting and customization work to this end at LSI Logic, Cisco Systems, Texas Instruments and National Semiconductor. He even held out special praise for Cisco, which is a coveted EDA customer for any company.

"Cisco is a magical customer. They've been buying from us quarter after quarter. What they are doing is very high end. They are really pushing the system-on-a-chip envelope," Braun said.

Cooper Starts Up EDAConnect.com

John Cooper, of Cooper & Chyan Technology (CCT) fame, is back. (CCT was acquired by Cadence Design Systems Inc. of San Jose for a cool $500 million about two and a half years ago.) Cooper is now chairman of EDAConnect.com, which in December will launch the first in a series of new board-level design tools. EDAConnect.com is distinguishing itself from the pack with its Internet-only business model.

"All business transactions between the customer and EDAConnect.com are done interactively using the World Wide Web, including sales, delivery, licensing and maintenance," Cooper said. The firm is moving EDA tools -- amazingly -- into the price range of household digital subscriber line services. The EDA2000 schematic editor will be available for download and continued support for one price of $49.95 per month.

Backing Cooper up will be Ben S. Franklin, president and chief executive officer. Franklin was the vice president and general manager of CCT's European operations from 1994 through 1997. Jill Barney, formerly of Honeywell Inc. in Minneapolis, is directing software development. As a consultant, Cooper has hired Logan M. Fanjoy, who will apply the library management expertise he picked up over a long career at Motorola.