Cadence Launches Integration Platform-based Design Services for Systems-on-a-Chip; Platform-based Design Services Enable Fast SOC Development with Flexible IP Options.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 27, 1999--

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (NYSE:CDN), the world's leading provider of electronic design products and services, today announced the availability of design services utilizing integration platforms for system-on-a-chip (SOC) design.

These platforms ease the combination of a broad range of intellectual property (IP) and functional blocks to speed the design of core-based SOCs. In addition, the platforms can be used to develop multiple reference designs for specific applications, such as information appliances.

Design Platform Specifics

The Cadence SOC integration platforms facilitate the use of a wide range of IP and supporting peripherals, including the OakDSPCore, the TeakDSPCore, and the ARM7 Thumb and ARM9 Thumb core families. Cadence pre-stages, or "socketizes," the IP so it can be easily and predictably mixed and matched with other blocks.

These platforms are specifically created to reduce customers' time to market. In addition to reducing the design cycle for first-generation electronic products, they enable fast derivative design and design of targeted application-specific reference platforms -- resulting in increased return-on-investment of multiple product generations and product families.

Combined with the Cadence procedure for evaluating and accepting IP into a design, these platforms constitute a structured methodology for IP selection, integration and verification that can help take the guesswork out of critical technical and economic decisions.

Putting the Platforms to Work

Cadence recently achieved a major success in the area of SOC development by designing the Aplio/TRIO chip for Aplio, Inc. (see today's announcement: "Cadence Designs World's First Single-chip Processor for Internet Telephony and Audio Distribution").

The Aplio/TRIO was developed from specification to tapeout by the Livingston, Scotland-based Cadence SOC Design Centre the world's first ARM-approved third-party design center. Incorporating three processors -- an ARM Thumb 32-bit RISC core and two OakDSPCores -- the TRIO chip targets such applications as Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephones, and MP3-based devices such as Internet radios and digital music players.

Cadence is targeting the platforms at a number of rapidly growing communications technologies, such as digital subscriber line (DSL) and cable modems for fast delivery of voice and data over the Internet, and Bluetooth, a standard that facilitates data/voice communication over wireless personal area networks. One example is an asymmetric DSL (ADSL) chip containing two ARM7 Thumb cores, which Cadence recently designed for a leading U.K. telecommunications startup.

Cadence performed specification-to-GDSII design -- including IP integration, direct memory access (DMA) design, and system verification -- for the device, which worked in the end equipment on the first try.

"SOCs are being implemented in a rapidly growing universe of applications from wired and wireless communications, to information appliances, to industrial and consumer products," said Bob Wiederhold, corporate vice president of worldwide design services at Cadence. "Together with the board-level platform strategy we announced earlier this year, these SOC integration platforms are an important part of our overall strategy to speed time-to-market for our customers."

Platform Availability

The Cadence ARM and ARM/Oak SOC integration platforms are immediately available for production use at Cadence sites providing SOC design services worldwide.

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. With more than 4,000 employees and 1998 annual sales of $1.2 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 and its products and services may be obtained from the World Wide Web at http://www.cadence.com.

Cadence and the Cadence logo are registered trademarks of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. All others are property of their holders.