Belgian EDA Startup Unveils IP Creation and Integration Strategy.

LEUVEN, Belgium--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 22, 1998--Frontier Design, a recent Mentor Graphics (NASDAQ:MENT) spin-off, today announced its strategy to provide customers with EDA tools and design integration services that support the in-house development of re-usable intellectual property (IP) cores and the integration of those blocks into performance-differentiated systems-on-a-chip (SOCs).

Frontier currently owns a portfolio of IP cores in the fields of wireless telecom, consumer audio and multimedia applications that it will continue to develop internally and through OEM agreements with merchant IP vendors. However, rather than selling these blocks "off-the-shelf" like EDA tools, Frontier will focus primarily on consulting and integration services in order to help customers integrate their own IP cores with those of Frontier and third-party vendors.

In addition, Frontier Design will help its customers turn their own system know-how into in-house Silicon IP, using its Algorithm-to-Silicon(TM) design methodology. This effort is currently supported by the sale of a variety of EDA tools that includes the Mistral2 synthesis tool it acquired from Mentor graphics.

Frontier Design is also developing a new suite of easy to use EDA tools and libraries that will offer algorithm-to-silicon methodology in a more generic way, and not tuned specifically towards Digital Signal Processing (DSP) applications as is the case with Mistral. Some of these tools will be introduced at this year's Design Automation Conference.

According to Herman Beke, Frontier's president and CEO, "While most people talk about the merchant Silicon IP (SIP) market, it is a fact that, today and in the next 5 years, the vast majority of that market will remain captive. In fact, Hambrecht & Quist estimates that in the year 2000, although the total SIP market will be 20 to 25 billion dollars, only 6 billion dollars will be spent in the merchant SIP market. The other 14 to 19 billion dollars will be in proprietary intellectual property, developed in-house."

"There are a couple of reasons why "off-the-shelf" merchant IP will not be as widely used as proprietary IP. First, there is no such thing as Plug and Play IP yet," Beke emphasized. "A great deal of work is involved in getting any externally developed core to work properly in your own system. There are interconnect and timing issues that can be very difficult to solve. Often the IP block must be customized to fit the customer's application. As yet, there aren't any EDA tools that support the integration of merchant IP into systems."

"The other reason is that the most valuable intellectual property today is not in the IP cores. It is in the wealth of algorithms that have been developed and refined by system companies which allow them to create state-of-the-art end-user applications," Beke explained.

"The main challenge these companies are facing is to turn their own proprietary algorithms into performance-optimized, reusable Silicon IP blocks. It is inefficient for them to try to rebuild these applications from scratch or by using off-the-shelf IP cores. Thus, they need EDA tools and methodologies that allow them to exploit their algorithmic IP. This is a business where Frontier can excel because of our tools and the extensive experience we have developed over the last eight years," Beke concluded.

Frontier Design's Algorithm-to-Silicon Design Methodology allows increased design productivity, more optimized Silicon IP cores and more optimized systems-on-a-chip. The methodology is supported by a set of high level specification, analysis and synthesis tools that constitute the EDA tools that Frontier will be selling.

The methodology allows the system designer to specify his algorithm in a bit-true way and then simulate and verify that algorithm using test vectors from the real application. Once the behavior of the design has been verified, the designer can generate a power-, area- or performance-optimized RT-level description of the system in synthesizable VHDL or Verilog.

Frontier's customers have several options. They can enter into strategic partnerships with Frontier in which they acquire both the tools and the methodology to create Silicon IP blocks internally. Or they may choose to develop their algorithms themselves, using Frontier tools and then let Frontier Design translate them into Silicon IP cores for them, which Frontier can then integrate into a system-on-a-chip.

Beke believes that most of Frontier's customers will choose to have Frontier develop the SIPs, for them. "Time to market pressures prohibit customers from engaging in a rather lengthy learning curve for applying our methodology. Moreover, they prefer to do what they do best where their added value is maximized -- system and/or algorithm design. With Frontier Design as their silicon integration partner they will be able to put exciting algorithms into silicon, quickly and efficiently.

"We also believe, however, that several companies will opt to integrate our complete Algorithm-to-Silicon methodology into their internal design process. We are currently in discussions with several major companies along these lines," Beke noted.

Sony Corporation, for one, has already adopted Frontier's Algorithm-to-Silicon design methodology to develop a new sampling rate converter for its recently introduced high-end Mini-Disc Recorders. The company created two cooperating custom DSP processor cores, based on its own asynchronous sampling rate conversion algorithm.

Nobuyuki Yasuda, Senior Engineer, Home Audio & Video Products, Sony corporation said, "The 'Algorithm to Silicon' design flow was instrumental in finding the most optimal decimation and interpolation filters and allowed us to accurately simulate the fixed-point behavior of our algorithms before going to the RT-level. Mistral2 allowed us to find the most optimal architecture in terms of arithmetic resources, time schedule and memory usage."

Frontier Design was founded in 1997 as the result of a management buy-out of the European Development Center of Mentor Graphics (NASDAQ:MENT).

The firm's primary emphasis is its "algorithm-to-silicon" design methodology that greatly improves the creation of Silicon IP blocks starting from customer- proprietary or industry-standard algorithms in the field of wireless telecom, consumer audio or multimedia applications. Algorithm-to-Silicon IP blocks consume less power, are less costly and require substantially less development time than other alternatives.

Frontier Design sells its design services and a line of EDA tools directly from its facility in Leuven, Belgium, and from its sales office in California. Frontier Design also sells through a growing number of distributors and Value Added Resellers in Northern America, Europe, Japan and the Pacific Rim.

CONTACT: Frontier Design

Herman Beke, + 32 16 39 14 11

[e-mail]

or

The William Baldwin Group

Nancy B. Green, 650/856-6192

[e-mail]