Windows gets nod from 3 EDA players

Electronic News, June 10, 1996 by Judy Erkanat

Las Vegas--Windows was endorsed by three of electronic design automation's biggest players at last week's Design Automation Conference in Las Vegas. Mentor Graphics came out with a Windows platform strategy separate from its Antares effort and including a Windows-based printed circuit board (PCB) layout tool--coupled with a new acquisition, a version of QuickHDL and Personal Architect AllPro, both for the Windows environment.

Despite slamming Windows as a design platform at DAC three years ago--when he said, "Not a single customer wants it. It's mostly being pushed by Microsoft and the press" (EN, June 21, 1993)--Aart de Geus, president and CEO of Synopsys, took on the vaunted "second wave" of IC designers with his own Windows product this year. FPGA Express is the company's first offering on the PC, which Dr. de Geus now acknowledges as the predominant platform for field programmable gate array (FPGA) and complex programmable logic device (CPLD) design.

Not to be left off the Windows bandwagon, Cadence Design Systems CEO and president Joseph Costello addressed the topic from the stage at DAC's CEO panel. "We're starting to see a much faster crossover to (Windows) NT," he said, predicting the Unix-dominated EDA market will be evenly divided between Unix and Windows products in 1998.

"Our Windows strategy is equal price for equal value," said Walden C. Rhines, Mentor's president and CEO. "This means if features must be compromised because of the Windows environment, the price will go down, too, but we don't expect this to happen on NT."

Rather than competing with its own Antares shrink-wrap Windows software group, Mr. Rhines said Mentor's new Windows offerings will include more service than Antares'.

John Isaac, director of marketing for Mentor's Systems On Board Division, introduced two PCB layout tools and announced the acquisition of SETO Software GmbH of Starnberg, Germany.

"We are striving to keep our lead in Unix, while riding the Windows wave with new product offerings in the NT marketplace," said Mr. Isaac. "After nine months of joint development and investigation, Mentor acquired SETO Software as part of our systems on board division. The entire German staff will be kept on board to work with our San Jose (Calif.) facility on interoperability."

With SETO comes PCB layout tools for stand-alone or mixed Windows/Unix-based design environments. The company was purchased for an undisclosed amount and accounted for as a purchase accounting transaction.

The Windows-based PCB tools, the Integra Station product family, will be integrated into Mentor's design environment, with the first product, the Board Station family, to provide bidirectional database compatibility within a mixed Windows/Unix-based platform. Integration is targeted for 4Q96, with Integra Station available 3Q96 on Windows NT and 95 for prices starting at $25,000, based on product configuration.

"Each seat includes a CCT router license, with interface to a CCT automatic router as an option," said Mr. Isaac, referring to routers developed by Cooper & Chyan Technology (CCT). "The goal of integration is to preserve the value of previous customer investment."

The Integra Station line's built-in unified database, coupled with design variant, real-time integration and design reuse capabilities, enables rapid turn of prototypes. The design variant means multiple product variations of a design may be built using a single design database, also guaranteeing consistency between schematic and board layout to eliminate the need for forward- and backward-annotation.

John Ott, director of marketing, simulation, for Mentor's Silicon Systems Division, unveiled QuickHDL Lite, a Windows version of its QuickHDL simulator based on Model Technology's V-System simulator for a mixed-platform environment.

Mentor also announced increased functionality and performance of its QuickHDL for Unix, QuickHDL 5.0, including a customizable user interface (UI) enabling faster analyzing of results and an enhanced kernel boosting performance 3x.

Mentor claimed to be the first EDA company with a hardware description language (HDL) test editor including compiler and simulator. Both new products include pre-compiled and source code versions of the std--DeveloperKit, a series of VHDL modeling packages for rapid building of common functions.

QuickHDL Lite features all HDL capabilities of the parent product for VHDL-based designs, including compilation, debugging features, and a direct-compiled code simulator. It is missing system-level links, like LMG SmartModel and Hardware Modeler support, or a C interface.

"QuickHDL Lite allows ASIC and FPGA designers, who are part of a large design team but don't require all the functionality for system-level links, to work on their part of a design on a Windows PC before dropping it into a full-system simulation in the Unix environment," said Mr. Ott. "This allows for maximum utilization of Unix and Windows hardware, and results in lower design costs for our customers. Our goal is to provide a best-in-class simulator for both Windows and Unix that provides faster analysis, faster simulation and seamless language mixing."