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

In the News

* The Market Statistics Service of the Electronic Design Automation Consortium (San Jose) reported record new license and services revenues of $825 million for the third quarter of 1998. The EDA industry grew by 17 percent overall during that period (in comparison with the same period last year). Over the last four quarters, the EDA industry's reported revenues totaled $3.09 billion. The third-quarter 1998 revenues marked the first time that the industry has generated more than $800 million in revenues in a single quarter and the fifth quarter in a row that it has reported more than $700 million in new license and services revenues. It also marks the fifteenth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth.

* Motorola, Inc.'s Semiconductor Products Sector (Austin, Texas) announced the first successful fabrication of 0.1-µm microprocessor feature sizes using a standard 0.18-µm silicon production process. The breakthrough was achieved using phase-shifting and optical proximity correction technology from Numerical Technologies, Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.).

* The Open Model Interface (OMI) standard specification proposed by the Open Model Forum and VHDL International (Boulder, Colo.) has become an IEEE standard. Known as IEEE 1499, OMI is designed to be the single, standard interface for communication between any model of a digital component and any EDA simulator based on VHDL or Verilog. The standard gives intellectual property providers a way to securely link their proprietary models with a variety of verification engines, because models are distributed in an executable format. In addition, the author has complete control over the visibility of each portion of the model.

* VHDL International also has launched a free on-line repository for VHDL-based software and freeware, functions, models, and test benches. The organization hopes that the VHDLExchange--located at www.vhdl.org/viuf/--will become a place where hardware and software designers can browse for freeware, software, models, functions, and test benches. EDA companies with VHDL-based software that includes 30-day free licenses can post their software at the VHDL Exchange or establish a link between sites.

* The board of directors of Ikos Systems, Inc. (Cupertino, Calif.) has approved amendments to its rights plan to better protect the company against certain coercive takeover tactics and inadequate offers. The company's shareholder rights plan has been amended to extend the term of the plan to January 22, 2009. The amendments reduce the stock ownership level at which the rights become exercisable, increase the exercise price from $10 to $30, address the situation in which a person inadvertently crosses the triggering threshold, and eliminate permitted offers.

* Duet Technologies, Inc. (San Jose) is entering the customer-owned tooling (COT) market by offering comprehensive, royalty-free, low-cost, silicon-proven standard-cell libraries and I/Os, as well as SRAM, ROM, and FIFO compilers, for major silicon foundries' processes. Under the new pricing and business model, COT customers can license the above products for a minimal fee. The royalty-free silicon library products are currently available for Chartered, IBM, TSMC, and UMC's 0.25- and 0.35-µm processes, plus TSMC's 0.5-µm process. Library products for 0.18-µm processes are available this quarter. Library evaluation kits and library purchases are available via the Web at www.duettech.com beginning this month.

* IP Valuation, Inc. (Palo Alto, Calif.) is a new software and services company that offers software and consulting services that place a monetary value on intellectual property licensed by semiconductor companies for use in its OEM customers' products. IPV's valuation takes into account the rights associated with IP deals as well as the contingencies that influence IP acquisition strategy and negotiations. CEO Lloyd Nirenberg, a semiconductor industry veteran, was previously director of business development at National Semiconductor. President and CTO Blake Johnson, a professor at Stanford University's School of Engineering, was an investment banker for Credit Suisse First Boston, where he was responsible for product development, marketing, and transaction execution for a range of asset security products.

* Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (Hsinchu, Taiwan) has added a suite of high-voltage logic processes. It now offers 8-, 16-, 20-, and 40-V technologies built with 1.0, 0.8-, 0.6, and 0.5-µm design rules, which can be used to integrate high-voltage, high-power devices with generic low-voltage logic and mixed-signal functions for system-on-a-chip applications.

* Chippac (Santa Clara, Calif.) has opened a customer packaging development center that allows companies to evaluate BGA and CSP packaging options and take delivery of packaged IC prototypes within five working days or fewer. The facility provides wire-bonded and flip-chip BGA/CSP packages; includes a Class 10,000 assembly area; and offers design, thermal, and electrical modeling services.

* OrCAD, Inc. and Summit Design, Inc. (both of Beaverton, Ore.) have agreed to terminate the merger agreement that they announced in September.

* Atmel Corp. (San Jose) will acquire the Smart Information Transfer (SIT) business of Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector . The proposed transaction, which doesn't affect Motorola's other smart card-related businesses, is expected to close by the second quarter of 1999.

* Viewlogic Systems, Inc. (Marlboro, Mass.) and Agile Software (San Jose) will develop and promote an integrated system that will link Viewlogic's Design Exchange and Agile's Workplace product-change collaboration systems to enable engineers to manage product development and collaborate on product changes. The ODBC interface will help design engineers use the Design Exchange family of tools to access information in Agile Workplace, including component properties, bills of materials, parts lead times, and approved manufacturer lists.

* Test System Strategies, Inc. (Beaverton) has changed its name to Fluence Technology, Inc.

* SEMI (Mountain View, Calif.) has launched SEMIndex, a global stock index of 62 publicly traded semiconductor equipment and materials companies. The market-weighted index, which began at a value of 100 on Jan. 1, will be updated on the company's Web site--www.semindex.org--every 15 minutes during the U.S. trading day. Available to all investors, it includes industry sector companies from the U.S., Japan, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, and Austria with market capitalizations of $50 million or more. In addition, the Web page will offer investors sector subindexes based on geographical regions and market-capitalized segments. It will also provide links to index company Web sites, five-year historical sector performance information, and current industry market statistics.

Movers and Shakers

* To meet the increased demand for data communications chips, the board of directors at Vitesse Semiconductor Corp. (Camarillo, Calif.) has elected three data comm vice presidents: Barry Sandefur, vice president of advanced networking products; Raymond A. Milano, vice president of optoelectronics and analog products; and Bob Rumer, vice president of gigabit products.

* Verysys Design Automation, Inc. (Fremont, Calif.) has appointed two chief scientists for its research and development efforts. Edmund M. Clarke is chief scientist of model checking and Wolfgang Kunz is chief scientist of equivalence checking. Kunz, a professor at the University of Frankfurt, Germany, in the department of computer science and chair of the department's electronic design automation unit will contribute technical innovations, enhancements, and applications of algorithms for verification to Structureprover II, Verysys's equivalence checker. Clarke, an endowed professor at Carnegie Mellon University, will shape the architecture and implementation of the company's Model Checker technology.

* Paul Menchini, EDA industry veteran and VHDL specialist, has joined OrCAD, Inc. (Beaverton, Ore.) as senior engineer. He will be a key contributor to OrCAD's VHDL-related products, OrCAD Express and Express Plus. He previously spent seven years as an independent EDA consultant with Menchini and Associates and has also held engineering and management positions with CAD Language Systems/Open Solutions, Technical Data Freeway, General Electric Microelectronics Center/GE Calma, and Intel. He's a charter member of the IEEE Computer Society Golden Core.

* Tom Roth has joined Simutech LLC (Vancouver, Wash.) as senior software engineer. He was most recently an Internet architect in the Electronic Connectivity Group at Synopsys and was previously a principal engineer and senior software engineer for the company. He was also model development manager for Logic Modeling prior to its merger with Synopsys, and a senior hardware engineer with Intel Scientific Computers.

Money Bits

* Cypress Semiconductor Corp. (San Jose) reported that revenues for the fourth quarter of 1998 were $124.2 million, down 1.4 percent from the prior quarter's revenues of $126 million and down 7.4 percent from last fall's revenues of $134.1 million. For the full year, revenues were $486.8 million, a drop of 10.6 percent from 1997's revenues of $544.4 million.

* STmicroelectronics (Lexington, Mass.) reported fourth-quarter net revenues of $1.13 billion, representing an increase of 9 percent over third-quarter net revenues of $1.04 billion and of 3 percent over net revenues of $1.10 billion in the fourth quarter of 1997.

* Lattice Semiconductor Corp. (Hillsboro, Ore.) announced revenues of $50.2 million for its third fiscal quarter, ended Jan. 2--up over 4 percent from last quarter's revenues of $48.1 million, but down 16 percent from the $60.0 million for the same quarter a year ago. Net income for the quarter was $10.5 million, or $0.45 per share--a rise of more than 6 percent from last quarter's earnings of $9.9 million ($0.42 per share) but a drop of 23 percent from the $13.7 million, or $0.57 per share, reported in the same quarter last year.

* The DSP Group, Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.) announced total revenues of $63.9 million in 1998, an increase of 3 percent over $62.0 million in 1997. Fourth-quarter revenues were $14.12 million, down 15 percent from $16.58 million in the fourth quarter of 1997. Net income for the quarter was $3.47 million, compared with $3.45 million in the fourth quarter of 1997. Earnings per share for the fourth quarter were $0.36--up 9 percent over fourth-quarter 1997's $0.33. Net income for 1998 was $14.4 million, or $1.44 per share, compared with 1997's net income of $11.0 million, or $1.08 per share.

Correction

The focus report for the July issue will cover test automation tools. If you develop and sell design-for-test tools, please contact Jeffrey Erickson at jeff@isdmag.com to ensure that you receive the survey. The August focus report will cover design and consulting services.

As of March 26, ISD will have moved into Miller Freeman's facilities at 411 Borel Avenue, Suite 100, San Mateo, Calif., 94402. The main phone and fax numbers are (650) 358-9500 and (650) 655-4250. For the time being, all e-mail and Web addresses will remain the same.

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integrated system design  April 1999