ASE Establishes Cadence Design Flow to Provide High-Performance IC Packaging Solutions; New Flow Addresses Customer Challenges in High-Speed, High-Data Rate Designs.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 21, 2002

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. announced today that Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Inc. (ASE), Taiwan, has established an analysis-driven IC packaging design flow based on Cadence Advanced Package Engineer (APE) to address the market need for reliable, high-performance products. With the new design flow, ASE, one of the world's leading providers of semiconductor manufacturing services and advanced IC packaging, is able to help its customers meet the challenges of high-speed and high-data rate designs.

The deployment of the new ASE design flow allows engineers on both sides of the design and manufacturing relationship to analyze the system interconnect, helping to ensure package performance is optimized in the entire system. APE provides package-level interconnect characterization and signal integrity analysis so engineers can perform design trade-offs between silicon, package, and board. This relationship supports the Cadence(R) Design Chain Initiative, which helps both companies tighten development relationships throughout their design chain, optimizing the chain.

"Our customers are facing strong and various design challenges as they move to nanometer design," said J.J. Lee, vice president of research and development, ASE. "Adopting the Cadence IC packaging environment enables us to bring to the market a comprehensive and integrated packaging solution, one that addresses the challenges of high-speed, high-data rate designs."

The Cadence SPECCTRAQuest(TM) for IC Packaging design and analysis tool has being integrated in the ASE design flow. It addresses the need for ensuring signal integrity of the interconnect from the silicon through the package to the board, enabling the creation of higher performing high-speed packages. SPECCTRAQuest employs a methodology that allows development of constraints for the interconnect through pre-layout exploration, constraint-driven interconnect implementation, and concurrent validation.

"IC packaging is the critical link in a silicon-to-package-to-board design flow, which can mean the difference between overall design success or failure. With Advanced Package Designer and Advanced Package Engineer, the industry-leading IC package design tools, Cadence offers a robust set of capabilities targeted specifically at current and future packaging technologies," said Matthew Chan, president Asia Pacific, Cadence Design Systems Inc. "With ASE's adoption of Advanced Packaging Engineer, our common customers benefit from a tighter, better integrated design chain."

About ASE

Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc. (ASE Inc.) was founded in 1984 and is a member of the ASE Group. ASE Inc. is one of the world's leading providers of semiconductor manufacturing services and a leading provider of a comprehensive range of advanced IC packaging. ASE Kaohsiung, the flagship company in ASE Group, possesses expertise in product and process technology for the manufacturing of CSP, high- frequency packages, MCM, flip chip, and wafer bumping manufacturing.

The ASE Group is a global leader specialized in the semiconductor backend total solutions for the semiconductor industry. The company offers customers turnkey services for integrated tests, packaging, system assembly, and product delivery. For more information and provided services of ASE Group, please visit web site at www.aseglobal.com.

About Cadence

Cadence is the largest supplier of electronic design technologies, methodology services, and design services. Cadence solutions are used to accelerate and manage the design of semiconductors, computer systems, networking and telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics, and a variety of other electronics-based products. IEEE, the world's largest technical professional society, honored Cadence with its 2002 Corporate Innovation Recognition award. With approximately 5,500 employees and 2001 revenues of approximately $1.4 billion, Cadence has sales offices, design centers, and research facilities around the world. The company is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., and traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CDN. More information about the company, its products and services are available at www.cadence.com.

Note to Editors: Cadence and the Cadence logo are registered trademarks and SPECCTRAQuest is a trademark of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.