Cadence Aligns Capabilities for Consumer and Mobile Applications to Support ARM's Cortex-A8 Processor

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (NYSE: CDN) (Nasdaq: CDN) today announced the immediate availability of a high-performance design flow for the new ARM® Cortexâ„¢-A8 processor. This flow uses the Cadence® Encounter® digital IC design platform incorporating Encounter RTL Compiler synthesis, Encounter Conformal® equivalence checking, and SoC Encounter® RTL to GDSII system. In addition, the company announced the immediate availability of Cadence support and services to improve time to market for ARM Partners implementing very high-performance Cortex-A8 processor-based designs.

The ARM Cortex-A8 processor targets digital-entertainment and mobile-communications products with demanding performance, cost and power requirements in conjunction with tight time-to-market constraints. Cortex-A8 customers at 90 and 65 nanometers will be able to leverage the Encounter design flow and Cadence's extensive experience in implementing ARM technology-based SoC designs in order to minimize power, maximize performance, and tape out successful implementations ahead of their competitors.

"We are pleased to collaborate with ARM to bring leading-edge SoC design capabilities to their Cortex-A8 Partners," said Jan Willis, senior vice president of Industry Alliances at Cadence. "Our joint program combines engineering and development resources to help our mutual customers speed the completion of advanced digital-entertainment and mobile-communications products. This marks another milestone in our longstanding collaboration with ARM, which now spans over ten years and provides the broadest array of technology and support for ARM processor-based design."

"Our ongoing partnership with Cadence continues to produce innovative approaches to enable a faster path to our Partners' successful product introductions," said Mike Inglis, executive vice president of Marketing at ARM. "The capacity and optimization of the Cadence Encounter platform, combined with the ARM Artisan® Advantage-CE library for the Cortex-A8 processor, provides a complete front-to-back flow in high-performance, low-power design."

The high-performance design flow leverages the automation techniques of the Cadence Optimization Methodology Kit for ARM Processors that maximize high performance, low power, and small die size. The collaboration will also enhance the ARM-Cadence Encounter Reference Methodology for RTL-to-GDSII synthesis, implementation, and verification of ARM processors.

Availability
The Cadence advanced design flow, support and services for ARM Partners implementing very high-performance Cortex-A8 processor-based designs are now available. Further enhancements to the ARM-Cadence Encounter Reference Methodology for other ARM processors will be available in early 2006.

About Cadence
Cadence enables global electronic-design innovation and plays an essential role in the creation of today's integrated circuits and electronics. Customers use Cadence software and hardware, methodologies, and services to design and verify advanced semiconductors, printed-circuit boards and systems used in consumer electronics, networking and telecommunications equipment, and computer systems. Cadence reported 2004 revenues of approximately $1.2 billion, and has approximately 5,000 employees. The company is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., with sales offices, design centers, and research facilities around the world to serve the global electronics industry. More information about the company, its products, and services is available at www.cadence.com.