IN THE NEWS

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

In the News

Actel Corp. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) played a significant role in the recent Mars Pathfinder mission, providing the programmable logic necessary to navigate Pathfinder to the Martian surface and transmit the pictures seen all over the world. Twenty-three different Actel FPGAs are part of the Mars mission, used in the Pathfinder and Sojourner imaging arrays, Pathfinder's frame buffer board, Cruise Stage Interface, Hardware Command Decoder Uplink, Lander Interface, and Mars Flight Computer. The imaging arrays, or still cameras, transmit high-resolution color photos and imaging data of the Mars landscape back to scientists who are studying the red planet, along with a worldwide audience. Actel also announced that it has been commissioned to supply the upcoming Mars '98 Survey Project camera with its A1020 FPGAs and the 1999 NASA Earth Orbiter One (E0-1) satellite with its A14100 FPGAs.

Applied Materials Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.) is completing plans for an equipment development pilot line at its headquarters. The new facility will enhance the company's engineering and technology activities by making possible integrated development, test, and demonstration capabilities for its extensive process technologies. Part of a $430 million investment in the company's Santa Clara facilities to support system- and process-development for both 200- and 300-mm wafers, the pilot line will have a full range of process technologies, including lithography and wet processing, that will enable Applied Materials to perform complete wafer processing cycles similar to those used in its customers' semiconductor fabs.

Fujitsu Ltd. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) announced that, in connection with its previously announced tender offer to acquire all the outstanding shares of Amdahl Corp. (Sunnyvale) that it doesn't currently own, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission have granted Fujitsu early termination of the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976. Early termination of the waiting period indicates that those government agencies don't intend to oppose the tender offer and related merger on antitrust grounds.

Technology Modeling Associates Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) executed a nonbinding letter of intent to acquire Precim Corp. of Portland, Ore., a developer of software for full-chip optical proximity correction (OPC), for 400,000 shares of TMA common stock. Precim develops computer-automated products for optimizing the performance and quality of semiconductor tooling (pattern transfer) activities in wafer fabrication. Its tools are used to construct or modify design layouts to improve yield and circuit performance.

Samsung Electronics Company Ltd. (Seoul) and SanDisk Corp. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) have signed a cross-licensing agreement for flash memory­related patents. Under the agreement, Samsung and SanDisk have licensed each other's patents covering the design and manufacture of flash memory products, giving both companies worldwide rights to use those patents. In addition, the agreement resolves all the disputes between the companies that were before both the International Trade Commission and the U.S. District Court of Northern California. Specific terms of the agreement are confidential.

Although the book-to-ship ratio for semiconductor equipment dropped in August, as did the ratio for U.S. electronic equipment in June, the IC book-to-bill ratio continues at the same healthy level, foreshadowing a general upturn.

Movers and Shakers

VLSI Technology Inc. (San Jose) appointed Douglas M. McBurnie to the newly created position of senior vice president, Computer and Consumer Products Group. McBurnie will report to VLSI's president and COO, Rich Beyer . He will be responsible for VLSI's businesses in advanced computing, consumer digital entertainment, and local-area networking. The company also appointed Nobuo Sugawara president of its Japanese subsidiary, VLSI Technology K.K. Sugawara will report to VLSI's senior vice president of worldwide sales, John Hodgson , and will be responsible for running all of VLSI's sales and design center operations in Japan.

OrCAD Inc. (Beaverton, Ore.) announced that Phil Kilcoin has joined the company as its director of product marketing. In this newly created position, Kilcoin will be responsible for driving the direction of product development and supporting the growth of sales channels.

Watkins-Johnson Co. (Palo Alto, Calif.) has promoted William R. Uhlemann to vice president, purchasing and materials, within the company's Semiconductor Equipment Group (SEG). Uhlemann joined Watkins-Johnson in 1996 as director of purchasing and materials.

Altera Corp. (San Jose) announced that Charles M. Clough has joined its board of directors, bringing the number of directors to seven.

Gambit Automated Design Inc. (San Jose) named Lanny Ross chairman and CEO of the company. The appointment of Ross, a founder and member of the board of directors of Gambit, will allow Dr. Michael Burstein --who previously served as chairman, CEO, president, and CTO--to concentrate his efforts on product development and advanced technology development.

Viewlogic Systems Inc. (Marlboro, Mass.) promoted Shiv Tasker to the position of senior vice president of worldwide sales and marketing. Tasker joined Viewlogic from Cadence in May 1996 as senior vice president of corporate marketing with responsibility for Viewlogic 's corporate and strategic marketing including marketing communications.

Joseph B. Costello , president and CEO of Cadence Design Systems Inc. (San Jose), has achieved the top performance ranking in Chief Executive Magazine's 1997 CE100 Performance Index of the most effective CEOs in the country. The index evaluates company CEOs over a three-year span using a number of different metrics, including growth in earnings per share, market capitalization improvement, and return on equity.

ASIC International (Knoxville, Tenn.) appointed Marian Geohegan business development manager. Geohegan will manage the company's business development program, as well as work closely with AI's technical staff in meeting customer service needs.

Money Bits

Credence Systems Corp. (Fremont, Calif.) reported net sales for the third quarter, ended July 31, of $51.1 million, an increase of 18 percent compared with the prior quarter's $43.4 million but a drop of 24 percent compared with net sales of $67.2 million for the comparable quarter of fiscal 1996. Net sales for the first nine months of fiscal 1997 were $134.7 million, down 31 percent from the $194.6 million recorded for the same period a year ago. Results for the third quarter, including a one-time pretax charge of $6.0 million for in-process research and development associated with the company's acquisition of TSSI, completed in mid-July, reflected a net loss of $897,000, or $0.04 per share. That represents a 108 percent decrease when compared with the net profit of $11.5 million, or $0.53 per share, for the comparable quarter of the previous year. Without the one-time charge, the third quarter net income would have been $4.4 million, or $0.20 per share. Net income for the nine months ended July 31 declined 90 percent to $3.4 million, or $0.15 per share, compared with $33.4 million, or $1.52 per share, for the same period last year. Without the one-time charge, the nine-month period would have shown a net income of $8.8 million, or $0.39 per share.

Wind River Systems Inc. (Alameda, Calif.) reported operating results for the second quarter, which ended July 31. Revenues for the second quarter were $22 million, an increase of 47 percent from the $15 million reported in the second quarter of the previous year. Net income for the quarter was $3.87 million compared with $2.09 million for the corresponding quarter of the previous year, an increase of 85 percent. Earnings per share grew from $0.08 in the second quarter of last year to $0.14 this year, up 75 percent. Total revenues for the first half of fiscal 1998 of $40.4 million represent a 46 percent increase from $27.6 million in the first half of fiscal 1997. Net income for the first half of this fiscal year was $6.82 million, versus $3.56 million for the same period last year, an increase of 92 percent.

Analog Devices Inc. (Norwood, Mass.) announced record sales of $318 million for the third quarter of fiscal 1997, 4 percent above those for the year-earlier period and up 6 percent sequentially. Net income also reached a record high of $46.0 million, compared with $43.8 million a year earlier and $42.1 million for the second quarter. Earnings per share were an all-time high of $0.27, versus $0.26 posted for fiscal 1996's third quarter and $0.25 earned for the immediately prior quarter. Overall orders increased substantially compared with the second quarter, resulting in a book-to-bill ratio comfortably above 1.0, a healthy increase in shippable backlog.

Silicon Valley Research Inc. (San Jose) reported that for the quarter ended June 30, its revenues were $713,000, compared with $2.22 million for the comparable quarter last year, and the net loss for the current quarter was $3.99 million, compared with $535,000 for the comparable quarter of the prior year. Net loss per share was $0.25, versus $0.05 for the quarter ended June 30, 1996. The quarter ended June 30, 1997 includes charges of $1.217 million resulting from the impairment in value of prepaid royalties to Lucent Technologies for marketing rights to its Bell Labs' line of verification products. Also included in this quarter is the write-off of $1.04 million of unamortized software development costs. These items will reduce the company's future fixed-cost base by more than $400,000 per quarter.

Zycad Corp. (Fremont, Calif.) announced a net loss of $1.87 million, or $0.08 per share, on revenues of $3.82 million for the quarter ended June 30. For the comparable quarter in 1996, the net loss was $3.94 million, or $0.20 per share, on revenues of $9.55 million. For the six-month period ended June 30, the net loss was $7.49 million, or $0.30 per share, on revenues of $7.9 million; compared with a net loss of $8.54 million, or $0.43 per share, on revenues of $16.53 million for the same period in 1996.

Editorial Call

In our January issue, our Focus Report will cover third-party design and consulting services. We will be sending out questionnaires to all of the third-party design and consulting organizations currently in our database. If you haven't been included previously and would like to be in our upcoming report, please send your contact information to sarah@isdmag.com so that we can send you our request for information. We'll be sending out our survey forms in the beginning of October.

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integrated system design  October 1997