Cadence Leads Transition to Physically Knowledgeable Synthesis With Bold Product and Pricing Strategy. New PKS Product Ready to Meet Productivity Challenges of 0.18 micron Chip Design - Product Announcement

Edge: Work-Group Computing Report, Sept 13, 1999

Cadence Design Systems, Inc., the world's leading supplier of electronic design products and services, Tuesday expanded and re-priced its synthesis software tool suite to accelerate the transition to next-generation technologies for physically knowledgeable synthesis (PKS) -- a requirement for designing electronic devices with advanced silicon processes of sub 0.18 micron and below.

Cadence announced production availability of its third-generation synthesis product called Envisia synthesis with PKS technology. To expand its presence in conventional (wire-load model) synthesis and ready its customers for the transition to PKS, Cadence also introduced a new performance/price point for its second-generation, high-performance Envisia Ambit synthesis product. Effective immediately, Cadence is shipping an enhanced version of Envisia Ambit synthesis with new distributed processing and static timing sign-off capabilities at the reduced price of $25,000, a savings of 80 percent off the current U.S. list price.

Currently, Cadence is the only electronic design automation (EDA) company delivering a complete portfolio of conventional register transfer level (RTL) synthesis and next-generation PKS tools. Envisia synthesis with PKS was announced in July of this year.

"For the next 12 months, the market will largely be in transition to chip technologies at 0.18 micron and below," said Jim Hogan, vice president of IC implementation marketing at Cadence. "The design productivity challenges caused by such deep sub-micron (DSM) technologies are significant and require investments both by EDA users and suppliers in new design tools. The role of synthesis, in particular, is changing for deep sub-micron and system-on-a-chip design, and it is imperative that the market respond accordingly."

Hogan added, "Cadence will lead the market through the synthesis transition with a two-fold product strategy -- first, access to high performance, high capacity current-generation tools at a compelling price point; and second, practical upgrade paths to physically knowledgeable synthesis for design projects at 0.18, 0.15 micron and below. While other suppliers are raising the prices of first-generation synthesis offerings, Cadence customers now have more powerful second-generation synthesis for a fraction of the price and a smooth transition to third-generation Envisia synthesis with PKS."

DSM Productivity Challenge Fuels Transition

Due to silicon process requirements of sub 0.18 micron, designers are facing the need to transition over the next 12 to 18 months from conventional synthesis to PKS. Designers simply can't be as productive at sub 0.18 micron using conventional synthesis that relies on wire-load estimates. PKS is expected to be a key requirement as it addresses the affects of DSM physics by employing actual physical information, rather than statistical wire-load models, to calculate interconnect delays of complex circuitry.

Envisia Ambit synthesis provides designers with the performance needed to synthesize multi-million-gate designs at the chip-level. (Reference announcement date September7 , 1999, ASIC International Uses Cadence Synthesis Tool to Compile 2.4 Million Gate Design). Envisia synthesis with PKS is built on the Envisia Ambit synthesis foundation and adds physical information to the synthesis process to deliver better timing performance and tight correlation with the physical place and route operations.

Envisia Ambit synthesis is plug-compatible with its PKS successor to aid technology adoption without compromising design productivity. Additionally, both the Envisia Ambit synthesis and new PKS products support industry standard file formats, providing Cadence users with a mechanism for importing design and library data generated by other third-party synthesis tools.

Pricing & Availability

Envisia Ambit synthesis is re-priced at $25,000, and Envisia synthesis with PKS technology is priced at $250,000 (U.S. list). Both products are available for UNIX-based workstations from Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard. For information on international pricing, please contact the local Cadence sales office.

Cadence is the largest supplier of electronic design automation products, methodology services, and design services used to accelerate and manage the design of semiconductors, computer systems, networking and telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics, and a variety of other electronics-based products. With more than 4,000 employees and 1998 annual sales of $1.2 billion, Cadence has sales offices, design centers, and research facilities around the world. The Company is headquartered in San Jose, Calif. and traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CDN. More information about the company, its products and services may be obtained from the World Wide Web at http://www.cadence.com.