Analogy to buy Symmetry; gets $1.26M DARPA pact

Electronic News, Oct 28, 1996

Beaverton, Ore.--Struggling with its market value after six months as a public EDA company, Analogy, Inc., based here, demonstrated its long term strategy for investors by following up its report of an 11 cent per share loss in the 2Q ended Sept. 30 with news of an acquisition, a $1.26 million DARPA contract, and a development program with ATE supplier Teradyne.

In a cash and stock deal, which the company during a teleconference valued at roughly $1.8 million, Analogy, Inc., would purchase Los Gatos, Calif.-based Symmetry Design Systems, Inc., though a definitive agreement has not been reached. Symmetry would add its SymLib 12,000-device model library to Analogy's mixed- signal simulation offerings.

"It shows they've got a vision for the company, independent of the stock price. They want to demonstrate they have a long term strategy for mixed technology simulation that will bring them through quarterly fluctuations in performance," said EDA analyst John Barr of Needham & Co., the firm that underwrote Analogy's IPO in March. "Symmetry is a great little company."

"In mixed-signal simulation, models are to simulators what software is to computers," said Gary Arnold, Analogy's president and CEO. "Model availability is the biggest limitation in system-level simulation. Symmetry's SPICE-level modeling expertise, modeling tools and libraries are a perfect complement to Analogy's behavioral modeling and simulation tools."

Asked if he thought Analogy is shopping for other acquisitions, Mr. Barr said, "There are other small companies with complimentary technology to Analogy's, but if they will or not, I couldn't say."

Analogy also reported that the federal Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has selected and funded Analogy $1.26 million to advance mixed-technology simulation technology based on the emerging IEEE standard 1076.1 (VHDL with analog, mixed-signal and mixed-technology capabilities).

The goal of the 25-month cooperative agreement, awarded by Rome Laboratory, is ultimately to implement the emerging IEEE 1076.1 standard. Rome Laboratory is one of the sponsors of the IEEE 1076.1 language development. The agreement gives Analogy DARPA's support to advance its efforts in developing better single-kernel simulation technology that will accommodate models written in both 1076.1 and Analogy's proprietary HDL, MAST.

DARPA's Electronics Technology Office is funding this project to accelerate VHDL 1076.1 adoption and validate its use in modeling analog and mixed-technology ICs. As part of a realignment of existing programs, DARPA is looking to create a new capability for designing mixed-technology systems composed of analog, digital and Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS), Analogy said.

The Analogy effort is viewed as a first step to providing a consistent, single language modeling and simulation environment for these "true 'systems on a chip'," Analogy said.

Analogy further said its single-kernal simulation technology will address two problems faced by the emerging MEMS industry--the difficulty in verifying designs prior to fabrication, and the yield and quality problems associated with fabrication variability. "The award demonstrates DARPA's confidence in Analogy's expertise in developing software tools for use in the design and analysis of mixed-technology components and systems," Mr. Arnold said.

The new simulation technology will be compatible with Analogy's existing simulator, Saber, so existing MAST models will be portable between simulation architectures, it was said.

And in Washington, D.C. last week, ATE supplier Teradyne reported that it and Analogy are working together for first customer Texas Instruments on a test data interface, through Analogy's Saber product, to Cadence Design Systems' Verilog-XL (see Test Floor, page 26).

Analogy reported financial results for the 2Q ended Sept. 30 of total revenue at $5,259,000, creating a net loss of $932,000. The 11 cent loss per share was based on a weighted average of 8,356,000 shares outstanding, the company said.

"We continue to believe that the long-run demand for our products is strong, and that our recent sales weakness does not reflect competitive losses ... Despite our disappointing recent financial results, we continue to see a number of positive developments in our business," Mr. Arnold said.

Mr. Arnold helped to bring former National Semiconductor president/CEO Charles Sporck and former Oregon governor and Nike executive Neil Goldschmidt onto Analogy's board; Mr. Arnold is formerly of National. The company's founder is Doug Johnson.