Barcelona Ushers in the "dot.com" Era of EDA Breakthrough Analog Synthesis Technology is Industry's First Web-Based Service for Chip Designers.Business & High Tech Editors MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 28, 2000 Barcelona Design, Inc. today announced a pioneering e-business model and its initial application that targets the electronic design automation (EDA (1) (Electronic Design Automation) Using the computer to design, lay out, verify and simulate the performance of electronic circuits on a chip or printed circuit board. ) industry and designers of complex semiconductor chips. By utilizing the reach, flexibility and efficiency of the World Wide Web, Barcelona will deliver its breakthrough optimization technology as a real-time Internet-based service which shields the user from the complexity, integration and maintenance issues inherent in traditional EDA software tools. Barcelona was founded in 1999 by Mar Hershenson, a recent graduate of Stanford University Stanford University, at Stanford, Calif.; coeducational; chartered 1885, opened 1891 as Leland Stanford Junior Univ. (still the legal name). The original campus was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. David Starr Jordan was its first president. and Stephen Boyd, a Stanford professor. The pair had previously collaborated, while Hershenson was studying under noted Stanford professor and analog expert Tom Lee, on extensive research in non-linear convex optimization Convex optimization is a subfield of mathematical optimization. Given a real vector space  together with a convex, real-valued functionThe circuits in analog chips operate with voltage and current varying in a continuous fashion; in contrast, digital chips only use and create voltages design. That research, exclusively licensed to Barcelona by Stanford, has been greatly extended by the company to form the foundation of this technology offering. Barcelona has extensive backing from EDA and semiconductor industry luminaries, including Joe Costello A number of people are know by the name Joe Costello
http://cadence.com/. See also Verilog. (who is Barcelona's chairman of the board); Robert Dobkin, CTO (Chief Technical Officer) The executive responsible for the technical direction of an organization. See CIO and salary survey. of Linear Technology; Abbas El Gamal, founder of Actel and Silicon Architects; Marty Walker, founder of Frequency Technology; and Buno Pati, president and CEO of Numerical Technologies Numerical Technologies, Inc. was a San Jose, California, USA based EDA public (NASDAQ: NMTC) company, previously knowns as Transcription Enterprizes. On March 3, 2003 it was acquired by Synopsys. . Barcelona received first-round funding from Crosslink Capital, whose managing director, Michael Stark
Barcelona's initial focus will be in the area of analog design where it will provide the industry's first true synthesis and optimization technology for analog and mixed-signal circuits. The technology, which is based on leading edge and patent-pending research in the area of non-linear optimization by Barcelona's founders while at Stanford, significantly enhances the automation involved in designing analog and mixed-signal chips. That automation, combined with Barcelona's expertise deploying its technology via the Web, creates a powerful new capability for electronic designers. "The Web has become widely accepted as a channel to deliver goods and services In economics, economic output is divided into physical goods and intangible services. Consumption of goods and services is assumed to produce utility (unless the "good" is a "bad"). It is often used when referring to a Goods and Services Tax. but very few companies are leveraging its potential for real-time, data-intensive service transactions. And even fewer are utilizing it as a platform for chip design applications. Our model introduces a whole new approach for how technology in general, and EDA technology specifically, can be deployed, used and maintained," said Hershenson. "We leverage two major trends in the industry: 1) the power and reach of the Web to deliver value directly to customers; and 2) the increase in demand for analog circuits, particularly in system-on-chip-based products for high-growth applications such as wireless and networking. These types of products require high-performance analog and mixed-signal chips, and designers of such chips are in extremely short supply. The combination of what we are doing will make state-of-the-art analog design capabilities much more accessible and the overall chip design process much more efficient." About the technology Using a set of core numerical optimization engines, which can also be applied to other aspects of chip design and even beyond EDA applications, the technology is delivered via a standard browser in an intuitive user interface. The user need only enter specific design parameters via the Web and the engine generates optimal designs, thus reducing the amount of time even a very experienced analog designer typically spends exploring design trade-offs and tweaking tweaking Vox populi Fine-tuning to produce optimal results designs to improve performance. The underlying technology reduces design time dramatically, often saving days or weeks on a specific element (e.g. an op-amp or a filter). "This capability will allow designers to spend more time doing the creative aspects of their jobs, and leaving the mundane and time-consuming optimization process to the technology," said Hershenson. "We have achieved a holy grail with respect to analog design. People have been trying to develop this capability for twenty years TWENTY YEARS. The lapse of twenty years raises a presumption of certain facts, and after such a time, the party against whom the presumption has been raised, will be required to prove a negative to establish his rights. 2. without much success. This is equivalent to what logic synthesis did for digital design." Support and interest from the industry has already come in for the Barcelona technology and model. "This is one of those rare instances where a powerful but little-known mathematical approach is found to apply extraordinarily well in an unexpected domain," said analog design guru Jim Solomon, a founder of Cadence Design Systems and previously director of mixed-signal chip R&D at National Semiconductor. "The Barcelona researchers have discovered how to cleverly formulate some very complex and important EDA problems in a way that quickly leads to optimal design solutions." All design data entered by users is kept highly secure at Barcelona's data center in California. The company's Web site is registered with VeriSign, a digital identification service. All design information travels over secure, encrypted (SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) The leading security protocol on the Internet. Developed by Netscape, SSL is widely used to do two things: to validate the identity of a Web site and to create an encrypted connection for sending credit card and other personal data. ) connections. Because the technology is Web-based and hosted remotely, it is platform independent, allowing users to protect their existing hardware investments and use the computing environment of their choice. Free trial available Barcelona plans to unveil complete product details, including its pricing model, in the next 30 days. In the meantime Adv. 1. in the meantime - during the intervening time; "meanwhile I will not think about the problem"; "meantime he was attentive to his other interests"; "in the meantime the police were notified" meantime, meanwhile , it is offering a free trial of the capability on its Web site (www.barcelonadesign.com), beginning today. About Barcelona Founded in 1999, Barcelona provides Web-based services for complex design and analysis problems, powered by sophisticated numerical optimization technology. It provides an extremely practical, accurate and easy-to-use approach for a variety of complex operations. Barcelona's initial application is for electronic design automation (EDA) for which it provides the industry's first analog and mixed-signal design capability that automates and optimizes chip designers' work. The company is backed by several semiconductor industry luminaries as well as by Crosslink Capital. It is based in Mountain View, California For the census-designated place, see Mountain View, Contra Costa County, California. For other places called "Mountain View", see . Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, in the U.S. state of California. The city gets its name from the views of the Santa Cruz Mountains. and on the web at www.barcelonadesign.com. All trademarks referred are the property of Barcelona Design or their respective owners. |
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