Synopsys, Lucent form GSM chipset partnership

Electronic News, March 10, 1997 by Gale Bradley

Cannes, France--Synopsys and the Microelectronics group of Lucent Technologies are teaming up to bring cellular phone manufacturers the Lucent Micro Sceptre GSM chipset and customized Synopsys Cossap software to verify its performance.

The two chose the GSM World Congress here to detail their partnership. Attendees were listening, given that Synopsys provides design tools and services to four of the top five digital cell phone manufacturers and that Lucent's digital signal processors (DSPs) are found in half the world's cellular phones, according to Synopsys executive VP Chi-Foon Chan.

Synopsys and Lucent Micro will be developing the software they say can bring the time to verify the chipset's performance within a GSM terminal down to as little as two days from as long as two months. GSM stands for the global system for mobile communications protocol, which is used widely around the world but not to any great extent in the U.S.

For Synopsys, the agreement is another step toward being a provider of software and services for electronic system design automation, which would expand their customer base considerably. And for Lucent Micro, indications that the customer base for the Sceptre chipset is expanding meant an opportunity to commercialize tools that were before used only internally.

Under terms of the agreement, Synopsys will provide a combination of consulting services and the Cossap electronic system design automation tools, and Lucent will provide virtual prototype models of the Sceptre chipset. Cossap is the name given to the suite by the German firm Cadis Software, which Synopsys acquired nearly three years ago (EN, May 23, 1994).

Synopsys System Level Design Solutions group marketing manager Ravi Subramanian was excited to talk of the potential of this agreement and Synopsys' embracing the concept. He said, "There certainly are plans to go beyond the current offering with the Cossap tools and keep delivering for digital cellular design.

"Synopsys sees that the PCS revolution is really on now. You will be seeing more of these types of agreements from us soon," Mr. Sabramanian said. "Four of the five top cellular phone manufacturers are using Cossap and this stands to strengthen our offering to them."

Aaron Fisher, GM for wireless ICs at Lucent, said, "Synopsys' leadership in system-level simulation in this arena was critical in our decision to work with them."

Lucent Micro strategic tools marketing manager Rob Franzo said the GSM chipset marketplace was expanding and the unit saw an opportunity to expand the GSM chipset offering.

"Internally, our development organization has been using these software models and design verification tools for things like Full Type Approval and this environment was key. What we are doing is bringing to our customer the same capability, reframed as a product for their use," Mr. Franzo said.

"The benefits to our established customers is ongoing product enhancement, including solutions as GSM market continues to broaden and evolve, addressing data and embedded applications. And the new, alternative OEMs get these benefits as well.

Lucent highlights that the offering will help cellular telephone manufacturers doing business in Europe to get Full Type Approval (FTA) from the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). The manufacturers must do so before being allowed to sell their products there. All GSM cellular telephones currently on the market that use Lucent's Sceptre chipset solution have won FTA, it was said.

Sceptre features a GSM single-chip RF transceiver and is a programmable system option for wireless terminals, which helps manufacturers in achieving FTA. The Sceptre verification platform is scheduled for release in the second half of this year.

Synopsys' Mr. Sabramanian added, "You will be seeing more system-level, complete solutions like this one coming from Synopsys."