IN THE NEWS

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

In the News

At the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting, held in San Francisco, CA, former IEEE president Carleton A. Bayless presented Mitsumasa Koyanagi with the 1996 Cledo Brunetti Award for pioneering research and development of the three-dimensional stacked capacitor DRAM cell. Mark B. Ketchen was presented with the Morris E. Leeds Award for leadership in the development of super-conducting devices and technology for instrumentation applications. Seiki Ogura was presented with the Morris N. Liebmann Award for contributions to and leadership in the development of the lightly doped drain silicon field effect transistor (LDDFET). Robert W. Dutton was presented with the Jack A. Morton Award for seminal contributions to semiconductor process and device modeling. In addition, Hiroyuki Sakaki was presented with the David Sarnoff Award for pioneering studies of quantum effects in semiconductor microstructures.

Zycad Corp. (Fremont, CA) and Level One Communications (Sacramento, CA) announced a strategic alliance for verification technology, whereby both companies will share strategic information regarding product development and design methodology. Level One also committed to purchase a minimum of $600,000 of Zycad's new LightSpeed Simulation Server products over the next five months.

CPU Technology Inc. (Pleasanton, CA) announced that National Semiconductor Corp. (Santa Clara, CA) has acquired a multi-million dollar license for CPU Technology's verification software called Behavioral Verification Technology (BVT). National is incorporating BVT into the development cycle of its embedded processors, where it will provide enhancement to its existing development tools.

Silicon Magic (Cupertino, CA) announced a joint technology agreement with Oki Electric Industry Co. Ltd. (Sunnyvale, CA). The long-term agreement gives Silicon Magic access to Oki Electric's advanced DRAM processes and wafer fabrication, and gives Oki Electric unspecified product rights as well as influence over product development and direction. The two companies are developing a proprietary process to allow significant amounts of DRAM to be embedded with logic gates without the die-size penalty of a standard, four-poly, two-metal DRAM process.

Engineering students from Rutgers University and the University of Michigan took first place honors and $5,000 in prize money in the 1996 Student VLSI Design Contest. This year's competition was sponsored by Advanced Micro Devices, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, and Mentor Graphics, which established the contest in 1994. University of Michigan graduate students Phiroze Parakh and Todd Basso won the experienced category with a design titled "A High-Speed CGaAs using Domino Logic." The primary focus of this work has been to evaluate the capabilities of Domino Logic in Motorola's 0.5µm CGaAs tech-nology. Rutgers University students Madhu K. Iyer and G. Parthasarathy won the novice category with a design titled "Design of a Branch Prediction Controller Chip." Their project deals with the design and implementation of a hardware solution to the Brand Prediction problem in deeply pipelined processors.

Quickturn Design Systems Inc. (Mountain View, CA) has announced an award from two divisions of Sun Microsystems, Sun Microsystems Computer Corp. (Chelmsford, MA), and Sun Microelectronics (Sunnyvale, CA). The multi-million dollar purchase order includes the System Realizer emulation system and services in a multi-frame multi-million gate configuration.

Movers and Shakers

QuickLogic Corp. named Vincent A. McCord vice president and CFO, and it has appointed Ronald D. Zimmerman vice president of human resources.

Ascent Logic Corp. (San Jose, CA) appointed Daniel R. Kummet to the position of vice president of marketing.

Mark A. Miller joined Synchronicity Inc. (Boston, MA) as vice president of worldwide marketing.

Simplex Solutions Inc. (San Jose, CA) appointed Brian Carr vice president of worldwide sales and Aki Fujimura as a member of its technical Advisory Board.

Cascade Design Automation (Bellevue, WA) selected R. Barry Allen as its new CFO.

IKOS Systems Inc. (Cupertino, CA) appointed Holly Stump director of product marketing.

PADS Software Inc. (Marlboro, MA) announced Harvey K. Ford as their new vice president of worldwide sales.

OrCAD (Beaverton, OR) announced the promotion of Greg Applegate to vice president of sales. In addition, OrCAD appointed Greg Thomas director of the professional and educational services unit, Laura Churchill senior communications manager for international markets and investor relations, and Mike Lottridge product marketing manager for programmable logic.

Money Bits

Wind River Systems Inc. (Alameda, CA) reported operating results for Q3 of 1996. Revenues for Q3 were $16.6 million, an increase of 46 percent from the $11.4 million reported in Q3 of the previous year. Net income was $3.46 million compared to net income of $1.54 million for Q3 of 1995, an increase of 125 percent. Earnings per share grew from $0.10 in the Q3 of 1995 to $0.19 this year, an increase of 90 percent. Weighted average shares outstanding, used in the computation of earnings per share for the current and previous years, were 18.66 million and 15.68 million, respectively.

SMART Modular Technologies Inc. (Fremont, CA) reported results for its fiscal year and Q4 ended October 31, 1996. Net sales were $401.8 million, compared to $274.6 million for the fiscal year ended Oct. 31, 1995, an increase of 46 percent. Net sales for Q4 of 1996 were $106.3 million, compared to $80.5 million for Q4 of 1995, an increase of 32 percent. Net income was $25.1 million or $1.20 per share compared to $12.6 million or $0.72 per share for the year ended Oct. 31, 1995, representing an increase in net income and earnings per share of 100 percent and 67 percent, respectively. Net income for the Q4 of 1996 was $7.1 million, or $0.34 per share, compared to $4.9 million, or $0.28 per share for the Q4 of 1995, representing an increase in net income and earnings per share of 45 percent and 21 percent, respectively.

* Electro Scientific Industries Inc. (Portland, OR) reported sales of $35.1 million and net income of $4.6 million or $0.53 per share for the quarter year ended Nov. 30, 1996. Sales in the Q1 of fiscal 1997 were $34.8 million and earnings per share were $0.51.

IC companies are continuing to see good sales. The semiconductor equipment sales seem to have bottomed out and now are increasing.

To voice an opinion on this or any Integrated System Design article, please e-mail your message to: michael@asic.com.

integrated system design  February 1997