Cadence Launches First Internet Community for High-Speed PCB Engineers; www.specctraquest.com Goes Live for Learning, Discussion, Collaboration.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

WORCESTER, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 10, 2001

PCB EAST

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (NYSE:CDN), the world's leading supplier of electronic design products and services, today announced the launch of specctraquest.com, a new online community for printed circuit board (PCB) engineers and designers to learn more about -- and collaborate on -- high-speed design issues. Topics such as constraint development, simulation, modeling, power delivery system design, constraint-driven placement and routing, and achieving signal integrity are covered. Experts and novices alike can benefit from technical content provided by Cadence(R) engineers, partners and community members. Open discussion boards encourage members to share problems and solutions to their real-time, high-speed design challenges.

"The computer, communications, and networking markets' demand for smaller, faster products is causing engineers to push the envelope in terms of clock frequencies, new bus architectures, and giga-bit-per-second transfer rates," said Jamie Metcalfe, vice president of marketing for the Cadence PCB Systems Division. "The result is dense, complex, high-speed PCB systems with a myriad of design challenges to solve. Providing information on these issues is the goal of the new Cadence community."

High-speed design challenges are discussed on specctraquest.com in an open and collaborative environment. To join, community visitors simply need to sign-in and agree to follow participation guidelines.

Industry experts regularly host discussions of trends and topical issues, featuring interactive question and answer periods that allow members to interact with presenters.

The community also offers technical articles and application notes produced by Cadence, as well as user-contributed papers, models, tools, and utilities.

"I see a need for a high-speed design community. A lot of the work we are doing today on constraint management and signal integrity assurance is cutting-edge stuff. It's going to be great to communicate with other engineers outside of my team who are dealing with these same issues," said Robert Haller, signal integrity engineer, Cereva Networks, Inc., Marlborough, Mass. "Broadening my network can only help by giving me access to experiences and solutions that others have had."

According to Hemant Shah, director of marketing for the High Speed Systems Design Group at Cadence, "The new community is a creation of Cadence engineers who recognize that designers want to holistically understand the problems associated with developing high-speed boards. Then they can key in and discuss their specific concerns or successes in a worldwide, 24/7 community."

Bruce Mayer, senior scientist, Litton Advanced Systems, chairman of the CCT User's Group and a long-time moderator of an industry list serve, was one of the site's beta reviewers. "It is my experience that user communities are a fundamental resource of practical application information since they leverage the knowledge and experience of all participants," said Mayer. "I think the new Cadence site will become a gathering place for high-speed PCB engineers."

www.specctraquest.com Provides In-depth Content

As an extension of the Cadence online community initiative launched in March 2000 with the introduction of pspice.com and specctra.com, the new site represents the next generation of PCB Internet offerings.

Cadence advances community in specctraquest.com with special sections dedicated to the following:

      --  Optimization -- Cadence engineers and members share technical
        information to increase their understanding of high-speed
        design tools.

      --  Contribution -- Community members are encouraged to share
        articles of interest, tools and utilities they've developed,
        or to showcase their solutions to high-speed board problems.

      --  Discussion -- Members gather to engage in quality discussions
        to move both the individual and community to higher levels of
        productivity and efficiency.

Specctraquest.com will be updated regularly and invites input, comments, and suggestions at http://www.specctraquest.com.

About SPECCTRAQuest Design and Analysis Environment

The Cadence SPECCTRAQuest(TM) product series of high-speed board design and analysis solutions provides an integrated environment for the design and analysis of high-speed systems designs including timing, signal integrity, crosstalk, and electro-magnetic interference (EMI).

About Cadence

Cadence is the largest supplier of electronic design automation products, methodology services, and design services 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. The Cadence PCB Systems Division, a worldwide PCB EDA market leader, addresses the entire range of design needs in the PCB market, with complete tool suites available on Windows, Windows NT, and UNIX platforms. With approximately 5,700 employees and 2000 revenue of approximately $1.3 billion, Cadence has sales offices, design centers, and research facilities located 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 may be obtained from the World Wide Web at www.cadence.com.

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