IN THE NEWS

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

Asia-Pacific DAC

The Electronics Industries Association of Japan (EIAJ) and ACV '95 Conference Steering Committee announced that Asia-Pacific DAC '95 (AP-DAC '95) will run from Aug. 29 through Sept. 1, 1995 at the Makuhari Messe Convention Center in Chiba City, about 30 minutes from central Tokyo.

AP-DAC '95 is the first Asia-Pacific Rim area EDA conference that is an official sister to the Design Automation Conference in the US and Euro-DAC. It will present key speakers from Japan and the U.S. to discuss issues relevant to the Japanese EDA user.

Featured speakers will include Dr. Atsushi Asada, senior EVP of Sharp (Tokyo, Japan), and Dr. Jim Meadlock, CEO of Intergraph (Huntsville, AL).

The conference's full-day tutorials include advanced system design methodology, and design for testability and automatic test generation for ASICs.

Pre-registration fees (before July 25) are ¥45,000 (approx. $530). A full day tutorial is ¥30,000 (approx. $353).

For more information about AP-DAC '95, contact: Conference ACV '95 Secretariat Business Center for Academic Societies Japan, 5-16-9 Hon-Komagome, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113 Japan. (Fax: 81-3-5814-5823.) To obtain information in the U.S., contact: Inter Expo Inc., 6290 Sunset Boulevard, Suite 1125, Los Angeles, CA 90028. (Phone: [213] 876-8393; fax: [213] 466-4376.)

NewsBytes

IKOS Systems (Cupertino, CA) has received two separate purchase orders from SGS-Thomson (St. Genis Pouilly, France). In Nov. 1994 and Jan. 1995, two different groups at SGS-Thomson placed substantial orders for the Voyager Series VHDL simulation tools and the second-generation hardware accelerator NSIM.

A Verilog HDL survey by Open Verilog International (OVI, Los Gatos, CA) indicates continued growth in the Verilog marketplace. Total Verilog HDL revenues in 1994 were $772.8 million, and new 1994 Verilog seats totaled 9,322. Last year, OVI announced Verilog-related revenues to be $170 million.

Adaptec (Milpitas, CA) has announced a licensing agreement with Apple Computer (Cupertino, CA) that will enable Adaptec to use Apple's FireWire technology to develop products capable of interfacing with a new class of peripherals.

Advanced RISC Machines (ARM, Cambridge, England) has adopted the EPIC Design Technology products--PathMill, PowerMill, and TimeMill--as their standard electronic design automation tools for transistor-level dynamic timing analysis and power analysis.

PRI Automation (Billerica, MA) has won an $11 million order from Taiwan-based Mosel Vitelic . PRI will provide an interbay automated materials handling system for 6-in. wafers to be installed in the sub-.50 ým wafer processing facility in Hsinchu, Taiwan.

High Level Design Systems (HLD, Santa Clara, CA) has launched its Deep Submicron ASIC Vendor Program, which is intended to define, develop, and mature design methodologies for the expanding number of designers taking advantage of deep submicron process technology. Charter members include Atmel (San Jose, CA), IBM (Essex Junction, VT), Oki Semiconductor (Sunnyvale, CA), Mitsubishi Electronics America 's Electronic Device Group (Sunnyvale, CA), and Symbios Logic (Fort Collins, CO).

Philips Semiconductors (Albuquerque, NM) has designated the Sunnyvale, CA facility of photomask supplier Photronics (Brookfield, Conn.) a "Supplier of the Year." The award is based on technology, quality, responsiveness, dependability, and cost performance.

Photronics ' Brookfield facility was awarded ISO 9002 Certification.

S3 (Santa Clara, CA) has made a $1 million purchase of the Voyager Series mixed-level VHDL simulation solution from IKOS .

Knowledge Revolution (San Mateo, CA) has signed the first licensees of its new third-party developer program for their kinematics/dynamics analysis software, Working Model. The third-party developers are Mesa Software (Ann Arbor, MI) and Vanderplaats Research and Development (Colorado Springs, CO).

Matra MHS (Nantes, France) has adopted ChipPlanner from Compass Design Automation (San Jose, CA) as the floorplanning methodology for their newly introduced 0.6µm CMOS sea-of-gates family.

The 1995 IEEE Nuclear and Space Radiation Effects Conference (NSREC) is to be held in Madison, Wis., from July 17 to 21 at the Holiday Inn Madison West. The conference, sponsored by IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society Radiation Effects Committee and the Defense Nuclear Agency (DoD), Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA), Sandia National Laboratory (DoE), and Phillips Laboratory (USAF), contains over 115 papers on the latest observations into the damaging effects of nuclear radiation on electronics. For more information, contact Teresa Ferris at (719) 594-8035.

Attest Software (Santa Clara, CA) has signed a joint marketing agreement with Compass . The agreement provides joint customers with "tools throughout the design and test development process," in the words of Attest president Dan Holt.

Movers and Shakers

Synopsys .com/isdweb/&lf=isd-sendtolog"> Synopsys (San Jose, CA) has formed a 22-member team of DSP experts. The director of DSP marketing is John Cooper . The technical marketing manager is Ravi Subramanian . The director of DSP tools is Joachim Kunkel . Other new appointments include DSP sales manager Chris Bauer , and sales specialists Brad Murphy , Scott Spurlin , and Doug Aitelli .

Harris Electronic Design Automation (Fishers, NY) has appointed Jerry Walters vice president of worldwide sales.

CAD Framework Initiative (CFI, Austin, TX) has announced several new members to its board of directors. They are: William J. Evans , Anthony Zingale , Lance Mills , Bob Wiederhold , John A. Darringer , Callan Carpenter , L.J. Reed , Hitoshi Yoshizawa , Aart deGeus , and Alain Hanover . The board elected several directors to hold offices: Andrew J. Graham is the chairman, L.J. Reed is vice chair, William J. Evans is treasurer, and Bob Wiederhold is the secretary. Mitchell D. Heins has been appointed marketing director of CFI.

MoneyBits

High Level Design Systems (Santa Clara, CA) reported revenues for the first quarter (ended March 31) of $2.1 million, a 587 percent increase over the $300,605 reported for the same period in 1994. Net income was $88,064, compared to a net loss of $1.1 million the previous year.

PRI Automation (Billerica, MA) reported revenues for fiscal 1995 second quarter, ended March 31, of $14.5 million, up 64 percent from the same period in fiscal 1994. Net income was up to $1.7 million, more than double the $737,000 net income last year.

First quarter net revenues for SGS-Thomson (St. Genis Pouilly, France) rose 30 percent from $599.3 million in 1994 to $778.6 million. Net earnings increased 35 percent to $106.9 million.

IKOS Systems (Cupertino, CA) announced second quarter (ended April 1) revenues of $6.7 million. Also reported was a net income of $715,000, versus $174,000 in the same period last year.

integrated system design  July 1995