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

In the News

Ikos Systems, Inc. (Cupertino, Calif.) and Logic Innovations, Inc. (San Diego) have teamed up to extend the use of Ikos's Virtualogic emulation systems into the vector acceleration market. Logic Innovations will provide its Data Stream Transport System directly to Ikos customers for the capture, playback, and analysis of high-speed digital data streams. The partnership will allow the companies' mutual customers to use their emulators for targetless emulation, also known as vector acceleration.

3Dlabs, Inc., Ltd. (Hamilton, Bermuda) has entered into a strategic supply relationship with SGS-Thomson Microelectronics (Lincoln, Mass.), which will serve as an alternative fab for 3Dlabs' Permedia 2 family of 2D and 3D graphics processors. SGS-Thomson will manufacture a pin-compatible version of Permedia 2 to be sold by 3Dlabs.

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (San Jose) announced an SOC University Scholarship program in conjunction with Scotland's four major universities involved in the educational initiative of Project Alba. The project, launched in December by Cadence and Scottish Enterprise (Edinburgh, Scotland), Scotland's main economic development organization, is an initiative combining government, industry, and academia to address the requirements of system-on-a-chip design and establish Scotland as the world's premier location for electronics companies designing advanced system chips (see "In the News," February, p. 10).

Lucent Technologies Inc.'s Bell Labs Design Automation (Murray Hill, N.J) has been awarded a contract for more than $1.25 million by Silicon Graphics/Cray Research (Mountain View, Calif.) for the follow-up purchase of additional licenses of Formalcheck, its system-level model-checking technology.

VLSI Technology, Inc. (San Jose) has licensed Clearspeech noise cancellation and Clearspeech echo cancellation algorithms from Noise Cancellation Technologies, Inc. (Stamford, Conn.) for use with current and future ICs for the digital cellular and PCS phone markets, as well as emerging computer telephony markets.

Open Verilog International (Los Gatos, Calif.) is working with the ASIC Council to define a framework for using OVI's Advanced Library Format standard and the IEEE P1418 Delay and Power Calculation System standard proposal for improving deep-submicron models.

The EDA Consortium (San Jose) has added Newsupdater to its Web site, www.edac.org. The service provides site registrants with the latest EDA Consortium member company news by e-mail. To register for Newsupdater, visit www.edac.org.

OrCAD, Inc. (Beaverton, Ore.) has launced a new Web site (www.orcad.com) that features the OrCAD Design Network, a new Internet-based service. In addition, the company's Internet-enabled demo CD can be ordered through the Web site.

The Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML), developed by the Virtual Reality Modeling Language Consortium (San Ramon, Calif.), has been approved as an international standard by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). As an ISO/IEC standard, VRML has gained international endorsement and provides a guarantee of specification stability, which will promote content compatibility to drive the growth of 3D on the Internet.

Edward Lee will present his approach to developing block diagrams for DSP design in a keynote speech at the DSP World Spring Design Conference , running April 21­23 at the Santa Clara Convention Center (Santa Clara, Calif.). Lee is a professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at the University of California in Berkeley and directs the Ptolemy Project, a research project on design methodology for reactive systems.

CPU Tech (Pleasanton, Calif.) will create and deliver a new single-chip processor to the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command that can be used to provide a compatible upgrade for aging airborne computers. Called the MS1, the reprogrammable chip addresses the issue of diminishing sources for existing processors.

American Microsystems, Inc. (Pocatello, Idaho) has established a strategic relationship with Smart Telecom Solutions (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) to develop commercial products for the wireless market that incorporate AMI's Waveplex family of wireless ICs. Designed to address the 2.4-GHz radio market in both the U.S. and Europe, the products will involve STS designing components to expand the Waveplex family.

In other news, AMI has doubled the size of its San Jose­based design center and has increased the staff. The design center is moving from its present 2,600-square-foot facility to a 5,400-square-foot facility.

Test Systems Strategies, Inc. (Beaverton, Ore.) has formed an alliance with Microchip Technology, Inc. (Chandler, Ariz.) to develop one of the first product lines supporting the IEEE's P1450 Standard Test Interface Language (STIL) to be used for test generation simulation. STIL allows large volumes of data to be transferred between the EDA and production test worlds and is currently being solidified by a consortium of leading IC manufacturers, EDA providers, and ATE companies. Both TSSI and Microchip Technology are founding members of the standards committee.

PNY Technologies, Inc. (Parsippany, N.J.) and Rambus, Inc. (Mountain View, Calif.) have agreed that PNY will manufacture and distribute memory modules that support the Direct Rambus DRAMs. The new technology will enable l.5 Gbytes/s of sustained bandwidth from a single device and will span multiple generations of DRAMs.

Veribest, Inc. (Boulder, Colo.) has signed an OEM agreement with Quicklogic Corp. (Sunnyvale, Calif.). Under the terms of the multiyear pact--Veribest's first OEM agreement--Veribest will provide Quicklogic with a version of its VHDL simulator that will be integrated with Quicklogic's Quickworks tool set and sold by Quicklogic. The enhanced tool set will be available to Quicklogic users this spring.

UTMC Microelectronic Systems, Inc. (Colorado Springs, Colo.) has introduced a turnkey service called Spacecard that will allow designers of commercial satellite systems to procure from a single source commercial radiation-hardened ICs and circuit cards assembled with a tailored commercial space flow.

Chip Express Corp. (Santa Clara, Calif.) and Seiko Epson Corp. (Nagano, Japan) have partnered to provide products for the gate array market. The mutually developed SLP (sea-of-gates laser-programmable) gate array family combines Chip Express's customization techniques with Seiko Epson's silicon. The new product family, available today, is distributed in the U.S. by Chip Express and in Japan by Intex Corp., an affiliate of Toyo Ink. Intex is a party to the agreement and has an OEM relationship with Seiko Epson.

Intel Corp. (Santa Clara, Calif.) has completed a minority investment in Abstract, Inc. (Fremont, Calif.). A privately held company, Abstract develops formal verification EDA tool suites used in the design of complex single-chip systems.

Sente, Inc. (Acton, Mass.) has signed agreements with European EDA software specialists from Europe. As a result, Sente's power analysis design software is now available in the U.K., Germany, Scandinavia, the Benelux countries, Austria, and Switzerland.

According to a recent study completed by the Institute for Interconnecting and Packaging Electronic Circuits (Northbrook, Ill.), electronic manufacturing service providers foresee a 19.3 percent average revenue growth in 1998, and printed circuit board manufacturers anticipate a revenue growth of 9.1 percent on average.

The worldwide market for robotic hardware and software for semiconductor factory automation grew 27 percent in 1997, to $1.66 billion, according to the report Semiconductor Factory Automation: Technology Issues and Market Forecasts , recently published by The Information Network (Williamsburg, Va.). The market for automated transfer tools includes vacuum and atmospheric robots, vacuum elevators, vacuum platforms, and platform software.

The Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International Trade Association (Mountain View, Calif.) has formed a working group of chief financial officers from leading semiconductor equipment suppliers to explore sources of capital for long-term growth and financing in Asian markets.

Fujitsu Microelectronics, Inc. (San Jose), has selected Paragon Technical, Inc. (San Jose) as its exclusive Northern California representative. Paragon will work with Fujitsu's sales organization to sell Fujitsu's entire portfolio of ICs and display products.

Movers and Shakers

Mentor Graphics Corp. (Wilsonville, Ore.) has named Andrew F. Adams vice president of Mentor Consulting, Richard J. Decker vice president of information technologies, and Anthony B. Adrian vice president and corporate controller. C. Douglas Lyons and Steven Blum will serve as vice president of sales for emerging products and vice president of sales for the Americas, respectively. Decker and Adrian report to Gregory K. Hinckley, chief operating and financial officer. Lyons and Blum will report to Ken Bado, senior vice president of world trade. Adams will report to Bernd Braune , the company's senior vice president.

Money Bits

Mentor Graphics Corp. (Wilsonville, Ore.) posted fourth quarter 1997 revenues of $122.5 million and a net loss of $8.8 million, or $0.14 per share. As a result of special charges and certain other asset disposals, the net income was reduced by $0.17 per share. Revenues in the fourth quarter of 1996 were $120.8 million, with a net loss of $11.4 million, or $0.18 per share.

Synopsys , Inc. (Mountain View, Calif.) reported revenues of $174.2 million and a net loss of $6.4 million, or $0.10 per share on a diluted basis, for the first fiscal quarter of 1998, ended Dec. 31.

Artisan Components, Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) has announced the initial public offering of 2.9 million shares of its common stock at $10 per share. Artisan and several of its stockholders have also granted to the underwriters of the public offering an option to purchase up to an additional 435,000 shares to cover overallotments, if any.

The board of directors at Cirrus Logic, Inc. (Fremont, Calif.) has approved a plan whereby the company may repurchase up to 10 million shares of its common stock in the open market from time to time, depending upon market conditions, share price, and other conditions. As of Dec. 27, Cirrus Logic had 68 million shares of common stock outstanding. The company may use the repurchase to offset shares issued in connection with various company employee stock plans.

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integrated system design  April 1998