HP (Palo Alto, Calif.) said the operating system, called HP-UX 11, will be showcased running a list of leading EDA applications, including Avant!'s Hercules, Cadence's Dracula, Mentor Graphics' Calibre and xCalibre, Quickturn's SpeedSim and Synopsys' Arcadia, among others.

The combination of the EDA apps and the 64-bit OS will execute on HP's "Visualize" workstations, a family of systems built around the company's PA-8200 RISC microprocessor.

The 64-bit OS will help HP target both users of Solaris-based workstations from Sun Microsystems Inc. as well as the passel of vendors that have begun selling systems based on Microsoft Corp.'s NT operating system. "EDA apps are really pushing the boundaries, with requirements for large job throughputs and large memory spaces," said Larry Anderson, marketing manager at HP's workstation systems division (Fort Collins, Colo.).

On the systems front, HP will update the Visualize family next year with its upcoming PA-8500 RISC chip, Anderson said. HP's subsequent systems will be based on Intel's Merced microprocessor once that chip becomes available in the year 2000. HP UX 11 runs on existing PA RISC processors and will also run on Merced.

Sparc clusters
However, Sun won't be standing idly by. At DAC, Sun will demonstrate clusters of its Sparc-based systems running compute-intensive EDA apps.

Sun is also positioning its Unix-like Solaris as a platform that can handle larger-footprint apps than NT can handle. On the systems side, Sun is currently developing workstations built around its upcoming UltraSparc III CPU. The boxes are expected to hit the market next year. Sun also has a potential ace in the hole‹partner Fujitsu is working to port Solaris to Merced.