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Cadence has also announced the acquisition of Design Acceleration, Inc. (San Jose), a supplier of EDA tools for system-on-a-chip design, for approximately $27 million in cash and Cadence common stock (subject to shareholder approval). The approximately 40 employees of the privately held DAI will join the Cadence organization.

An investor group comprising senior management and outside investors will acquire all of the outstanding shares of Integrated Circuit Systems, Inc. (Valley Forge, Pa.) at a cash price of $21.25 per share. The company has also agreed to sell intellectual property and engineering hardware and software related to its data communications business to 3Com Corp. for approximately $16 million in cash. The assets sold include customer-owned tooling technology, patents, design databases, and software. ICS will continue to sell and support its existing and prospective fast Ethernet transceiver product family.

The North American semiconductor equipment industry posted a slight drop in the book-to-bill ratio for December, according to Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (Mountain View, Calif.). The 0.94 figure is 1 percent below the November 1998 level and 41 percent below the December 1997 level. Three-month average bookings increased in December 1998 to $872 million, 12 percent above the November 1998 level but 44 percent below the December 1997 level.

Bjarne Stroustrup, the father of C++, will deliver the keynote address at the Embedded Systems Conference Spring , which takes place March 1-4 in Chicago. Stroustrup, currently the head of the large-scale programming research department at AT&T, will discuss C++ for embedded systems programming. Hector de J. Ruiz, president of Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector, will reveal his vision for the future of embedded systems in a discussion entitled "The Secret Is Out."

Movers and Shakers

Terry N. Thomas is the new vice president of strategic alliances at Virtual Silicon Technology, Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.). Thomas has been a technology manager at Nortel Networks for nearly three decades. During his tenure at Nortel, he held senior management positions responsible for complete systems design, integrated circuit development, and EDA technology and methods; most recently, he was managing director of strategic alliances and design systems for Nortel Semiconductors. A strong advocate of semiconductor and EDA standards, he was elected to the board of directors of the Silicon Integration Initiative in 1997 and has also been serving on the board of directors of the Virtual Socket Interface Alliance. He holds eight patents issued in various areas of semiconductor and telecommunications technologies.

Scenix Semiconductor, Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.) has named Bulent Celebi its president and CEO. Steve Leung , who has served as president and CEO since cofounding the company, remains chairman of the board of directors. Celebi, who has served on Scenix's board since the company's formation and was involved in its product definition and strategy, brings almost 20 years of experience in engineering, marketing, and general management to his new role. Before joining Scenix, Celebi was with Analog Devices for two years, most recently as vice president and general manager of product lines including power management, temperature sensor, amplifier, and aerospace products. He also directed Analog Devices' recent penetration of the personal computer market. Previously, he was with National Semiconductor for nearly 10 years.

Money Bits

Quickturn Design Systems, Inc. (San Jose) saw revenues of $31 million and a net income of $1.9 million, or $0.10 per share, for the fourth quarter of 1998. For the comparable period of 1997, revenues were $32.5 million and net income was $3.6 million, or $0.19 per share. The financial results for the year included revenues of $104.1 million and a net loss of $6.1 million, or $0.35 per share, compared with 1997 revenues of $110.4 million and a net loss of $5.3 million, or $0.31 per share.

Avanti Corp. (Fremont, Calif.) recorded unprecedented fourth-quarter operating results for 1998. Revenues were $63 million, a 36 percent increase over the fourth-quarter 1997 revenues. Net income before merger expenses was a record $13.2 million, up 60 percent over the fourth quarter of 1997. Pro forma diluted earnings per share were also a record $0.40, or a 67 percent rise over the same period last year. For the year, revenues were $227.1 million, a 38 percent increase over 1997 revenues. Pro forma net income was $49.2 million, 55 percent higher than 1997 net income. Diluted earnings per share was $1.46, a 49 percent increase over 1997.

Phoenix Technologies, Ltd. (San Jose) posted revenues of $30.5 million for its first fiscal quarter of 1999, which ended Dec. 31. In line with analysts' expectations, net income for the quarter was $902,000, or $0.03 per diluted share. Excluding a pretax restructuring charge of $1.9 million, net income was $2.2 million, or $0.08 per diluted share, compared with net income of $4.5 million, or $0.16 per diluted share, in the prior year. Semiconductor IP and firmware revenues climbed 184 percent over the prior year, owing in part to the acquisition of Sand Microelectronics in September.

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integrated system design  March 1999