• The EDA Consortium's (San Jose) Market Statistics Service (MSS) reported that electronic design automation (EDA) industry revenues, for the year ended December 31, 1999, compared favorably with the prior year's results. For the year, the industry grew five percent to reach a total revenue of $3.4 billion for 1999, topping 1998's record total of $3.3 billion. This trend continues the year-over-year positive revenue growth reported in the EDA Consortium's MSS report each year since the report's inception in 1994. EDA industry revenue for the fourth quarter totaled $901 million, a decline of less than one percent compared to $908 million in the fourth quarter of 1998. This is the sixth consecutive quarter in which the EDA industry reported revenues greater than $800 million, and only the second time in history that the industry has generated revenues greater than $900 million in a single quarter. During the fourth quarter of 1999, all major tool and service categories showed positive revenue growth, with the only exception being the integrated circuit (IC) layout category. Revenue growth by region was mixed. The annual growth rates per region were as follows: North America rose 2.8 percent, Western Europe increased 7.8 percent, Japan rose 5.6 percent, and Rest of World increased 15.5 percent. Fourth quarter growth rates for individual regions were as follows: North America down 6.6 percent, Western Europe rose 11.8 percent, Japan down 1.8 percent, and Rest of World rose 20.2 percent. Revenue growth by tool type showed marked variations by category. For the fourth quarter in a row, printed circuit board (PCB) and multi-chip module (MCM) layout was the fastest-growing EDA tool category. Total fourth quarter 1999 revenues for PCB and MCM layout tools posted a 20 percent increase over the fourth quarter of 1998 — reaching $91 million. Fourth quarter 1999 computer-aided engineering (CAE) revenues grew 4 percent compared to the prior year quarter, totaling 10 percent for the year. Explosive growth in application-specific hardware once again led the CAE category. Revenues for the fourth quarter reached $50 million, a 49 percent increase over the same period in 1998. At $478 million, CAE continues to be the largest EDA tool category.

• Innoveda, Inc. (Marlborough, MA) began its corporate existence, as Viewlogic Systems, Inc. and Summit Design, Inc. announced successful completion of their merger. The new company will market software and services that attempt to help engineers design and build advanced electronic systems for telecommunications, transportation, computers and consumer electronics. Summit Design stock traded under the Nasdaq symbol SMMT until the merger was complete. As a result of the merger, the company and privately held Viewlogic became Innoveda, Inc. Effective March 24, 2000, Innoveda will trade under the Nasdaq symbol INOV. The merger was approved on March 20 by shareholders of both companies. The merger was structured as the acquisition of Viewlogic by Summit. Approximately 16.2 million Innoveda shares were issued in exchange for all outstanding shares of Viewlogic. Innoveda also assumed Viewlogic stock options exercisable for up to approximately 2.0 million Innoveda shares. Viewlogic was known for its family of integrated eProduct (electronic product) design software and services, while Summit was an international provider of engineering software products in the areas of high-level design creation, analysis, verification and optimization.

• IMEC (Leuven, Belgium) has signed a long-term, wide-ranging technology access agreement with Coware, Inc. (Santa Clara, CA). Under the agreement, Coware gets access to all IMEC design automation research. The agreement covers research in such important areas as hardware refinement, embedded software flow, low-power design, and optimal memory usage.

• The Open SystemC Initiative (OSCI; Mountain View, CA) steering group completed the production-tested version 1.0 of the SystemC modeling platform. SystemC version 1.0 consists of all of the enhancements made in version 0.91 plus support for fixed-point data-types, which is essential for the refinement of complex algorithms to a hardware or software implementation. SystemC version 1.0 is the result of review and feedback from the SystemC community that has grown to over 2,200 users in over 500 different institutions, as well as close collaboration with industry bodies such as the Virtual Socket Interface Alliance (VSIA). Through an Open Community licensing model, designers can create, validate, and share models with other companies using SystemC and a standard ANSI C++ compiler. There are no licensing fees associated with the use of SystemC, and any company may join and participate. SystemC version 1.0 is available now.

• Vitesse Semiconductor Corp. (Camarillo, CA) has agreed to acquire all of the equity interests of Orologic, Inc. for $450 million in common stock. The transaction is expected to be completed before the end of April and will be accounted for as a purchase. Orologic, founded in October 1997, is a fabless semiconductor company that develops high performance system-on-a-chip (SOC) products. Orologic services provide integrated traffic and congestion management functions for ATM and IP traffic.

• Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI; Mountain View, CA) reported that the North American-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted a fourth-straight month of record orders in February 2000 and a book-to-bill ratio of 1.41. A book-to-bill of 1.41 means $141 in orders were received for each $100 worth of products shipped. The three-month average of worldwide shipments in February 2000 was $1.6 billion. The figure is even with the January 2000 level, and is 90 percent above the February 1999 shipments level of $845 million. The three-month average of bookings in February 2000 was $2.3 billion. The bookings figure is 2 percent above January 2000 and 120 percent above the $1.03 billion posted in February 1999. February bookings came in 39 percent above the previous cycle peak of $1.63 billion booked in November 1997. The February ratio of 1.41 is the second highest in the history of the SEMI Express Report and the highest in almost five years. The SEMI book-to-bill is a ratio of three-month moving average bookings to three-month moving average shipments for the North American semiconductor equipment industry.

• At DATE 2000 (Paris, France) Nokia Research Center, Rapid, Silicon Integration Initiative, Inc. (Si2), Synchronicity, and the Virtual Component Exchange (VCX) successfully collaborated to demonstrate real-time Internet-based transactions for the exchange of virtual component (VC) information between VC providers, catalog providers, and VC users. This standards-based program is named the "Quickvc" program. Quickvc will attempt to enable companies designing complex electronic products to readily find and use existing blocks of design from a broader range of sources. The standards for Quickvc are based on VSIA's Virtual Component Transfer specifications and Si2's ECIX Quickdata specifications. VCX provides a Quickvc interface plus tools for controlled access to protected technical, business, and legal information, and for reducing the business and legal overhead in a VC transaction. Synchronicity provides software for use by Nokia and Rapid. The Quickvc Program, underway since November 1999, has created working implementations for Internet-based query and response interfaces between VC providers, VC catalog providers, and their end-users. In this program, VC users are able to generate Internet-based requests (queries) for virtual components with specific characteristics. These queries are sent under user control to one or more VC libraries (or catalogs) at the same time, with the aid of a "registry" of Quickvc-compliant participants. Once candidate VCs are identified, additional information such as openly available data sheets can be requested for a specific VC. Protected assets such as simulation models, test benches, business, and legal information necessary for trade, can be accessed via the on-line tools developed by VCX. The schedule for the final version of the specifications will be announced at DAC 2000 in Los Angeles.

• Pads Software, Inc. (Marlborough, MA) and Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (San Jose) terminated their long-standing OEM agreement to supply the Specctra auto-router to Pads' customers. The companies are working together to ensure support for all customers, whether they continue to use Specctra or Pads' recently released Blaze Router auto-router. Pads will continue marketing and distributing Specctra until April 30, 2000, when this agreement takes effect. It will discontinue shipping Specctra with the next version of Power PCB, scheduled for April 2000. Both companies will honor all existing maintenance contracts. Customers with a Specctra maintenance contract must request Pads to provide their appropriate contact and system information to Cadence, who will then deliver subsequent new versions of the software. Cadence will support these customers under the existing maintenance contract at no charge until their renewal is due. Pads will also continue to provide phone support to all Specctra customers with a valid maintenance contract. Cadence will remain a member of Pads' Vendor Integration Alliance (VIA) program, which provides third party vendors and customers with a way of integrating their tools into the Pads design environment.

• Virata Corp. (Santa Clara, CA) has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held Inverness Systems, Ltd. (Marlborough, MA) in exchange for 850,000 shares of Virata common stock. The acquisition will give Virata access to Inverness Systems' ATM, IP, and MPLS networking software. Inverness currently has 30 employees and maintains offices in Kfar-Saba and Jerusalem, Israel as well as Marlborough, MA. Virata intends to continue operations in these offices to extend its worldwide sales, marketing, and support infrastructure and expand engineering centers for software networking technologies.

• Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (San Jose) signed a definitive agreement to acquire Westport Technologies Inc. (Nepean, Ontario), a privately held design services firm. Cadence did not disclose the financial terms of the agreement. Westport's 24 design engineers will represent the Cadence design services organization in North America with expertise in such areas as high-speed subscriber-access and datanetworking system design. Founded in 1996, Westport's technology hascentered on providing designs for telecommunications companies including reference designs for integratedcircuits, telecom line card products and xDSL system design.

• Frequency Technology, Inc. (Santa Clara, CA) agreed to merge with Sente, Inc. (Acton, MA). Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed, and the merger is expected to be complete by the end of April 2000. Alain Labat will continue as chairman, president, and CEO, and Lorne Cooper, current president of Sente, will be vice chairman, and a member of Frequency's board of directors. The company name will remain Frequency Technology, Inc., with headquarters at Frequency's existing location in Santa Clara. After the merger, the company will employ approximately 100 people. The merged company will have R&D operations balanced on two continents with approximately 50 percent of the combined revenue invested in R&D.

• The Virtual Component Exchange (VCX; Livingston, England) appointed five new members to its membership roster. The new members are BOPS, Inc.; OKI Electric; Palmchip; Pittsburgh Digital Greenhouse; and Xilinx. The announcement of the new members, made at the IP 2000 Conference, brings the total membership of the VCX to 29 companies, including leading IP sellers, IP users, IP foundries, and SOC design tool providers. Major participants include ARM, Cadence, Chartered Semiconductor, Hitachi, Mentor Graphics, Motorola, Synopsys, Toshiba, TSMC, and Xilinx. The first phase of the VCX web-based trading system will be launched by Q3 of 2000. This will include a virtual component listing, together with a search facility and safe controlled access to protected information on available IP. The major components of the process include a licensing term sheet generator and a contract configurator (based on model clauses drafted by VCX members), which can be tailored to suit individual buyer-seller relationship needs. Member companies are currently piloting the use of these systems before they go live.

• Simplex Solutions, Inc. (Sunnyvale, CA) acquired Snaketech (Voiron, France) , a developer of integrated circuit (IC) verification technology used in SOC design. The addition of Snaketech's 25 employees brings Simplex' headcount to more than 100. Snaketech CEO Jim Behrens, currently located in Snaketech's San Jose office (which will be merged with Simplex' Sunnyvale headquarters), will become Simplex' vice president of worldwide field operations. Snaketech's technical team will remain in France, where they will become Simplex' mixed-signal research and development unit. Philippe Duchene, one of Snaketech's founders, will head the French operation, and other Snaketech principals will assume leading roles within Simplex. The terms of the transaction will not be disclosed.

Movers and Shakers

• Simplex Solutions, Inc. (Santa Clara, CA) reported that Joe Costello has joined the board of directors. Costello, who is chairman and CEO of think3, a Santa Clara-based 3D mechanical computer aided design software company, was president and CEO of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. for more than a decade. Costello joins former Synopsys CEO and current Simplex board member Harvey Jones on the board, marking the first opportunity for these two industry titans to work together on the same venture. Simplex board members include chairman of Tensilica and former CEO of Synopsys, Jones; chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California at Berkeley, professor Richard Newton; Mayfield Fund general partner, Gib Myers; chairman of the executive committee of Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich, and Rosati, Larry Sonsini; CEO of Simplex, Penny Herscher; COO of Simplex, Aki Fujimura; and co-founder and chairman of Simplex, Stanford professor Resve Saleh.

• Leon Malmed, SanDisk's (Sunnyvale, CA) senior vice president of sales and marketing, will retire from the company on March 31, 2000. Malmed, who joined the company in 1992, worked in the storage industry for more than 30 years and previously was an executive with several storage companies including Maxtor Corp., Quantum Corp., and Syquest Technology, Inc. He joined the company in its early stages and directed efforts in establishing key industry storage standards such as compact flash and the multi media card."

• Chip Express Corp. (Santa Clara, CA) appointed Stephen E. McMinn to the position of president and CEO of the company. McMinn joined Chip Express in April 1999 as senior vice president of marketing and sales, and most recently acted as a member of the company's office of the president. Prior to joining Chip Express, McMinn was vice president of North American Sales for Toshiba America Electronic Components.

Money Bits

• Lexra (Waltham, MA) has closed a $7.5M second round of financing. In addition to its original investors, Lexra has attracted three major corporate partners. The funding will be used for business development and for development of next generation processors. Lexra, Inc. is a microprocessor developer specializing in 32-bit RISC and DSP cores for the embedded market.

• Magma Design Automation, Inc. (Cupertino, CA) raised $31 million in mezzanine financing. Magma has raised over $54 million since it was founded in 1997, setting a new pre-public funding record in the Electronic Design Automation (EDA) industry, the company said. The new equity will be used to enlarge Magma's research, development, sales, and customer support organizations and for international expansion. Funding comes from major equity funds, venture capitalists, strategically aligned corporations, and from private investors. The investor list in the latest round includes Admirals LP, part of the Galleon Group; New Enterprise Associates; Alliance Venture Management; Raza Venture Fund; Redwood Fund; and major corporations including Cisco Systems, Intel, and Hyundai.