IN THE NEWS

Business and technology news from the semiconductor and design tool industries.

VLSI and Hitachi Announce 0.35µm Technology

VLSI Technology (San Jose, CA) and Hitachi (Tokyo, Japan) have announced a high-density 0.35µm process technology. The companies believe that the five-level metal 0.35µm (L-effective) CMOS process, offering up to 5 million usable gates, provides 30 percent higher integration levels than competing 0.35µm cell-based processes.

The new technology offers lower power. Likely use is in digital set-top boxes, cellular and wireless communication, etc. The companies envision wireless and mobile communications devices incorporating voice and data and running on as little as two AA batteries, and even fully interactive digital video devices that could be available at VCR price levels.

The process supports 1280 pins and 5 million gates for cell-based designs. A key feature is a 1.4µm metal pitch (the companies point out that competing pitches are 1.6µm), yielding a 30 percent higher density, 30 percent better area savings, and lower costs per function. Power consumption is below 1µW/MHz/gate, and it supports 2.2- to 3.6V operations. The technology supports clocks beyond 250 MHz.

Development and fabrication are being carried out at VLSI's San Antonio, Texas, facility, and Hitachi's Musashi Works, near Tokyo. The process is the latest result of an eight-year partnership between VLSI and Hitachi.

Embedded Systems Survey Results In

Complex designs are increasingly becoming embedded systems containing a powerful microcontroller and many lines of computer programs. To determine the degree to which Integrated System Design readers were adopting this methodology, a survey was conducted of 1,000 randomly chosen subscribers. Of this total, 137 responded (a 13.7 percent return), a statistically sound representation of the 17,243 readers who are involved in embedded system design.

Of those responding, 62 percent stated they were designing custom embedded system hardware, and a surprizingly large number, 51 percent, said they were developing software applications. Inquiring as to the applications being developed yielded the following breakdown: 52 percent were used in control systems, 37 percent in data acquisition, 37 percent in realtime control, 34 percent in instrumentation, 32 percent in man-machine interface, 26 percent in network communications, 11 percent in databases, and the remaining seven percent in other areas.

An embedded system design team consisted of an average of six people. A typical design took around 9.3 months, but most respondents believed the time would drop to 7.3 months in the future. Asked what size microcontrollers designers were likely to use today and in the future, 8- and 16-bit devices showed a decline over time, while 32-bit chip use would increase in the future.

The most popular chip for future development was the 68300 family from Motorola Semiconductor (Chandler, AZ), the Pentium family and i860 CPU from Intel (Folsom, CA), the MIPS chip from Silicon Graphics (Mountain View, CA) and the PowerPC CPU from IBM (Essex Junction, VT). Respondents stated they would decrease their use of the Motorola 68000 family, the SPARC chip from Sun Microsystem (Mountain View, CA), and other microcontrollers as well. Designers were just as likely to use the 29000 from Advanced Micro Devices (Sunnyvale, CA) today as in the future.

NewsBytes

Exemplar Logic (Alameda, CA) has opened its first European sales office in Berkshire, England. Exemplar has also appointed J-Squared Technologies (Ottawa, Ontario) as its Canadian distributor.

Nextwave Design Automation (San Jose, CA) has raised over $3.5 million in its second round of financing, bringing their total equity investment to $4.4 million. The investors in the EDA tool company include Draper Associates, Newtek Ventures, and Technology Investments.

Harris Electronic Design Automation (Fishers, NY) and SGS-Thomson Microelectronics (Agrate, Brianza, Italy) have announced that Harris EDA will be the prime supplier of multichip module design systems to SGS-Thomson.

Berkeley Design Technology (Fremont, CA) has released the 1995 edition of DSP Design Tools and Methodologies, The Buyer's Guide. The three-volume, 1,300-page work provides independent analyses on over 350 digital signal processing design tools offered by more than 130 companies. The first copy is $3,850. Contact Franz Weller: (510) 791-9100 for more information.

Sierra Scientific (Sunnyvale, CA) has received ISO 9001 certification for their equipment and systems for image acquisition, processing, transmission, storage, and display.

The Electronic Design Automation Companies (EDAC) have announced a quarterly reporting service on the EDA industry. The report is called the Market Statistics Service (MSS) and covers revenues and licensing information. EDAC says that MSS is not being run as a profit-making venture. Subscriptions are $2,500 yearly. For more information, contact Evelyn Gurzi at (408) 287-6371, or e-mail at egurzi@interim.com.

Automotive supplies manufacturer AUTECS (Automotive Electronic Control Systems Inc., Anderson, SC) is the first customer for ProMaster 9500 by Data I/O (Redmond, WA). ProMaster 9500 is an automated system designed for programming and handling large volumes of fine-pitch programmable ICs.

Synopsys .com/isdweb/&lf=isd-sendtolog"> Synopsys (Mountain View, CA) is acquiring Silicon Architects (Sunnyvale, CA).

Atmel (San Jose, CA) has selected the region of Aix-en-Provence, France, as the site for its first overseas wafer fabrication facility. To support the investment, they are acquiring the majority interest in European Silicon Structures (ES2, Luxembourg, Belgium).

EDAC officers. From left to right: Rich Goldman, Steven Wang, Jennifer
Smith, Walden Rhines, Donna Fritz, Ewald Detjens, and Alain Hanover.

Movers and Shakers

The Electronic Design Automation Companies (EDAC) have announced the members of the management team for 1995. Alain Hanover , president an CEO of Viewlogic Systems (Marlboro, MA) continues for a second term as president. Walden Rhines , president and CEO of Mentor Graphics (Wilsonville, OR) and Gerald Hsu , president and CEO of ArcSys (Sunnyvale, CA) share the responsibility of vice president/executive committee co-chair/director, while Donna Fritz continues to serve as executive director. The board of directors of Crosspoint Solutions (Santa Clara, CA) has elected Robert N. Blair president and CEO. Dr. Gary W. Leive has also been appointed vice president of engineering. Jeff Dean has been hired as Exemplar Logic's (Alameda, CA) first European sales manager, working out of the company's new Berkshire, England-based office. Chip Express (Santa Clara, CA) has chosen Dr. Abe Peled to be chairman of their executive committee. Will Herman has been chosen to fill Viewlogic's newly-created position of executive vice president and COO.

MoneyBits

Quickturn Design Systems (Mountain View, CA) announced revenues for the quarter ended March 31 of $18 million, an 11 percent increase over the same term last year.

Synopsys .com/isdweb/&lf=isd-sendtolog"> Synopsys (Mountain View, CA) reported revenues for second quarter ended March 31 of $62.5 million, compared to $47.2 million the previous year.

integrated system design  June 1995