IN THE NEWS Business and technology news from the semiconductor and design tool industries.

In the News

* The Electronic Design Automation Consortium (San Jose) named James E. Solomon its 1997 Phil Kaufman Award winner. Solomon spent three years designing aerospace systems for Motorola Systems Research Labs in Riverside, Calif., before starting linear IC design at Motorola Semiconductor, which he ran for the next seven years. From 1970 to 1983, he was director of IC design for analog and mixed-signal chips at National Semiconductor. In 1983, he founded Solomon Design Automation (SDA), which later merged with ECAD to become Cadence Design Systems. He was president and CEO of SDA and founder and general manager of the analog and mixed-signal unit, general manager of the IC unit, and CTO of Cadence. In 1994, he cofounded Smart Machines in San Jose, a maker of direct drive robots for semiconductor wafer manufacture, of which he is chairman. In 1995, he cofounded Xulu Entertainment (San Jose), where he is president and CEO. Xulu is developing high-tech entertainment that will be used in retail sites operated by Xulu. Solomon is an IEEE Fellow, holds 23 patents in IC design, and has written over 50 papers. His work covering design theory for monolithic op amps is taught at universities.

* Ansoft Corp. (Pittsburgh) and VLSI Technology, Inc. (San Jose) have formed a partnership for signal integrity analysis of advanced packages such as ball grid arrays. Under the terms of the agreement, VLSI Technology will purchase Ansoft's Maxwell Eminence signal integrity suite, which consists of the Ansoft 2-D and Ansoft 3-D analysis and Spice simulation tools and Ansoft HFSS, a full-wave, 3-D solver.

* Researchers at Bell Laboratories , the research and development arm of Lucent Technologies, Inc. (Murray Hill, N.J.), have fabricated a practical transistor that is four times smaller, five times faster, and draws 60 to 160 times less power than today's transistors. The experimental "nanotransistor" exceeds today's transistors in such measures as current and signal amplification. Because future chips based on the technology would consume far less energy, it could prove especially useful in digital signal processors for cellular phones and other communications devices. Bell Labs scientist and project team leader Greg Timp described the achievement at the International Electron Devices Meeting in Washington, D.C., in December.

* American Microsystems, Inc. (AMI; Pocatello, Idaho) has signed an agreement with Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector (Tempe, Ariz.) to serve Motorola's gate array customers. In October, Motorola revealed plans to move out of gate arrays.

* The Design Automation Conference announced the Silicon Village Pavilion, a new venue for semiconductor companies, to be located in the center of DAC's exhibit area. The participating semiconductor vendors include Actel, American Microsystems, Chip Express, Cypress Semiconductor, IBM Microelectronics, Lattice Semiconductor, Lightspeed Semiconductor, Lucent Technologies, Motorola, Quicklogic, Samsung, Texas Instruments, and Tower Semiconductor.

* Lucent Technologies (Murray Hill, N.J.) will sponsor the Next Generation Award, one of the eleven 1997 Global Information Infrastructure (GII) Awards to be presented in the spring. The awards honor businesses and organizations that use network technology and the Internet to produce extraordinary results in education, community service, health care, electronic commerce, government, entertainment, and the arts.

* Texas Instruments, Inc. (Dallas) and Westell Technologies, Inc. (Aurora, Ill.) have formed an alliance to accelerate the development and deployment of TI's DSP-based digital subscriber line (DSL) technologies with Westell's DSL systems. The companies will initially work together to define and integrate TI's technologies into Westell's SuperVision xDSL Access Multiplexer (DSLAM) and customer access equipment.

* Chrysalis Symbolic Design, Inc. (North Billerica, Mass.) announced that it has signed agreements with distributors in both South Korea and Taiwan. In South Korea, Davan Tech Company Ltd. will sell and support Chrysalis's formal verification tools. In Taiwan, E-Team Design Systems, Inc. will handle the Chrysalis line.

* Mentor Graphics Corp. (Wilsonville, Ore.) and the Orchard School District (San Jose) have joined to open an Early Learning Center for children of Mentor employees located on Orchard School District's K-8 school site currently under construction and scheduled to open in March. Mentor and the district are pooling their resources to provide an enriched learning environment for over 40 children, infant through preschool age. The program will be modeled after the Mentor Child Development Center, which opened at the company's Wilsonville headquarters in 1992.

* Altera Corp. (San Jose) has moved to its new worldwide headquarters, situated on 25 acres on Innovation Drive between North First Street and Zanker Road in San Jose. The four custom-designed, multistory buildings offer 500,000 square feet of office and product test space. The headquarters is double the size of Altera's former San Jose facilities.

* Actel Corp. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) has opened a local office in Seoul, South Korea.

Movers & Shakers

* Quantum Effect Design, Inc. (QED; Santa Clara, Calif.) appointed marketing veteran Arnold Estep director of marketing. Estep brings more than 11 years of experience in the semiconductor industry and an additional 9 years in computer system design and development.

* The board of directors of Minc, Inc. (Colorado Springs) has chosen Robert Jensen , the former COO, as the company's CEO. Also, John Frothingham was elected CFO, David Still was named vice president of engineering, and Glenn Olsen was named the new vice president of quality assurance.

* H. Raymond (Ray) Bingham has been elected to the board of directors of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (San Jose). The company's CFO and executive vice president, Bingham joined Cadence in 1993 from Red Lion Hotels and Inns, where he served as executive vice president and CFO.

* Cypress Semiconductor Corp. (San Jose) appointed John Torode CTO, reporting directly to Dan McCranie , senior vice president of marketing and sales. Torode had been vice president and division manager of Cypress's Computer Products Division (CPD), based in Kirkland, Wash. He founded and served as president of CPD's corporate antecedent, IC Designs, which Cypress acquired and consolidated in 1993.

* Systems Science, Inc. (Palo Alto, Calif.) appointed Ghulam Nurie vice president of worldwide marketing and Dave Allenbaugh director of North American sales, reporting to Rich Kolb , president and cofounder. Nurie was most recently director of marketing for the ASIC Verification Group of Viewlogic Systems and has over 16 years of experience in the EDA industry. Allenbaugh has held executive sales positions at both Veda and Ikos.

Money Bits

* The North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry (Mountain View, Calif.) announced a book-to-bill ratio of 1.06 for October 1997. Three-month average shipments declined slightly to $1.5 billion, a 5 percent drop from September but a 44 percent increase since October 1996. Three-month average bookings decreased to $1.6 billion, or 8 percent from September but a 97 percent rise from the previous year. *

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integrated system design  January 1998