System-on-a-Chip Complexity Drives Fujitsu to Adopt Cadence Synthesis Tool

IP News

SAN JOSE, Calif.----Dec. 8, 1999-- Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (NYSE:CDN), the world's leading supplier of electronic design products and services, today announced that Fujitsu will provide library support for the Cadence high-capacity, high-performance Envisia(TM) Ambit synthesis tool, which allows rapid synthesis of large, multimillion gate system-on-a-chip (SOC) designs.

Several application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) vendors, including Fujitsu, have seen a rapid increase in demand for the Envisia Ambit synthesis libraries. ``Envisia Ambit synthesis, as a part of our current timing-driven design flow, addresses overall system LSI design efficiencies,'' commented Shigeru Fujii, general manager, System LSI & ASIC Division, Semiconductor Group, Fujitsu. ``We will support 0.35-micron, 0.25-micron, and 0.18-micron libraries and we are working to integrate the Envisia Ambit synthesis flow into our next-generation design environment, IPSymphony.''

This move by Fujitsu will enable its customers to take advantage of the Envisia Ambit synthesis tool's exceptional performance. Multiple design groups within Fujitsu use Envisia Ambit for their production designs. Fujitsu Telecom recently synthesized a 1 million-gate design with superior timing, area, and dramatic runtime improvements using the Envisia tool. ``We are extremely pleased to receive this endorsement from a world-leading company like Fujitsu. Fujitsu's decision to adopt Envisia Ambit synthesis aligns with our technology strategy and creates a baseline to expand to physically knowledgeable synthesis (PKS) for solving advance timing closure and capacity challenges of deep sub-micron system LSI designs,'' said Kiyotaka Fujii, president of Cadence Design Systems, Japan.

Envisia Ambit Synthesis

Envisia Ambit synthesis enables customers to synthesize multi-million-gate designs rapidly with superior results. Envisia Ambit synthesis also has a built-in, high-capacity, high-performance timing analysis tool that enables productive timing closure. The distributed synthesis feature built into Envisia Ambit synthesis leverages modern networked compute environments to dramatically reduce synthesis runtime for large designs. Envisia synthesis with PKS technology, is a revolutionary synthesis product that brings physical timing accuracy to synthesis. With physical accuracy in synthesis, timing closure iterations between synthesis and place-and-route are eliminated resulting in greater productivity and denser, higher performance circuits.

Pricing and Availability

Libraries supporting use of the Ambit synthesis product for the Fujitsu 0.35-micron and 0.25-micron process will be available in December 1999. Libraries supporting the Fujitsu 0.18-micron process will be available starting March 2000. The Cadence Envisia Ambit synthesis tools are available for UNIX-based workstations from Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard.

Envisia Ambit synthesis is offered at an U.S. list price of $25,000 and Envisia Ambit synthesis with PKS is offered at an U.S. list price of $250,000. For information on international pricing, please contact the local Cadence sales office.

About Cadence

Cadence is the largest supplier of software 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 $1.3 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.

Note to Editors: Cadence and the Cadence logo are registered trademarks and Envisia is a trademark of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. All other trademarks are the properties of their owners.