Cadence and Matsushita Rev Up SPECCTRA Expert PCB Autorouter; Matsushita and Cadence to Jointly Develop ALIVH Microvia Option.

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 22, 1999--

Cadence to Offer Free Capabilities, Upgrades to

Existing SPECCTRA Technology Customers

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (NYSE:CDN), today introduced at the PCB Design Conference West the newest version of SPECCTRA(R) expert, part of the Intrica(TM) family of printed-circuit board (PCB) and integrated circuit (IC) packaging design products.

SPECCTRA expert is a unified, interactive and automatic (auto-interactive) place-and-route system for high-speed, high-density PCBs that features significant technology improvements over its predecessor.

As part of this effort, Cadence has signed an agreement with Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. (NYSE:MC), and Matsushita Electronic Components Co., Ltd. (Osaka, Japan) to jointly develop an option for SPECCTRA expert that supports Matsushita's Any-Layer Interstitial Via Hole (ALIVH(TM)) technology -- an advanced substrate technology that specifically targets microvias -- to dramatically improve auto-routing for high-density PCBs.

The new features of SPECCTRA expert demonstrate Cadence's ongoing commitment to innovative solutions for advanced printed-circuit-board (PCB) design. SPECCTRA expert, together with a full selection of Intrica products, is on display this week at the PCB Design Conference West, Santa Clara Convention Center, in the Cadence booth, No. 502.

The Microvia Challenge

As the PCB industry continues to mature, it is encountering challenges that parallel some of those faced by the IC segment. One such challenge is that of microvias, which measure only about 4 to 5 mils in dia., as opposed to 30 to 40 mils for traditional vias (the pathways that carry a signal from one board layer to another). These much smaller vias, critical to reducing the size and weight of boards in end products such as cellular telephones and handheld electronics, are giving rise to design issues similar to those created by rapidly shrinking linewidths on computer chips. Because they are so small, microvias have a limited ability to carry current, creating increased resistance, capacitance and board delay.

Until now, placement and routing of substrates containing microvias could only be done manually, using interactive tools. Cadence and Matsushita are jointly developing an option for SPECCTRA expert that will help automate this process, enabling designers to reduce iterations and thereby experience a sizeable boost in productivity. This new functionality, never before available in conventional PCB design solutions, will maximize ease of design, one of the key advantages of ALIVH, a unique PCB technology developed and commercialized by Matsushita Electronic Components and Matsushita Electric Industrial.

The ALIVH microvia technology can reduce the size and weight of equivalent substrates by 50 percent. In addition, it possesses superior high-speed and routability properties. According to Toshio Tanizaki, managing director, member of the board, PCB Division, Matsushita Electronic Components, "The ALIVH business started mainly with the production of cellular phones in the Japanese market. The business partnership with Cadence in terms of advanced PCB design allows us to reach high-density packaging customers in North America and Europe, where Cadence has already established its market position."

Dave DeMaria, Cadence's vice president of marketing for PCB and IC packaging products, stated, "We are extremely enthusiastic about working with Matsushita to further enhance our auto-interactive routing technology. As microvia usage continues to grow, designers are going to need to reduce the amount of handcrafted routing they perform if they are to complete designs and get products to market quickly. We believe that users in all global geographies will benefit from the powerful combination of Matsushita's ALIVH technology and our SPECCTRA expert design environment."

Free Software Offers for Users of SPECCTRA autorouter

As part of its ongoing support for users of SPECCTRA technology, Cadence announced several special software offers. The company will provide all current SPECCTRA autorouter users with powerful auto-interactive placement and routing capabilities -- SPECCTRA EditPlace and SPECCTRA EditRoute -- free of charge.

Previously valued at up to $18,000, these free capabilities will be provided to all SPECCTRA autorouter users under active maintenance contracts, including all customers that purchased the tool through Cadence OEM partners. These capabilities will be bundled with the SPECCTRA autorouter license and will ship with the latest product release in the second quarter of 1999.

Cadence is also welcoming into its maintenance support program SPECCTRA autorouter users who purchased the tool through Mentor Graphics Corp. In addition to providing the free EditRoute and Edit Place capabilities, Cadence will update these users' current SPECCTRA autorouter seats to include three options -- high-speed (FST), advanced-rules (ADV) and design-for-manufacturability (DFM) -- free of charge. This represents a value of up to $50,000.

Further, Mentor users will be able to utilize their new licenses on either Unix or Windows NT for no additional charge; this free upgrade is available immediately. More detailed information is available at http://www.cadence.com/specctra.

Noted DeMaria: "The auto-interactive capabilities of EditRoute and EditPlace are extremely powerful and provide incredible productivity improvements over autorouting coupled with manual placement and routing. Although these options have been available for several years, they were out of reach to most of our customers, particularly those customers that purchased SPECCTRA autorouter through an OEM. We wanted to reinforce Cadence's commitment to all of our SPECCTRA customers, and what better way to do that than to provide them with one of the most productive advances in PCB design, free of charge?"

DeMaria added that, in addition to the productivity benefits enabled by combining the new, powerful auto-interactive capabilities with the SPECCTRA autorouter, users will save significant design cycle time by minimizing the number of times they must go back and forth between their host CAD system and the SPECCTRA software for initial placement, autorouting, manual completion, design-rule checks (DRCs) and engineering change orders (ECOs).

New SPECCTRA autorouter Capabilities

SPECCTRA EditPlace and SPECCTRA EditRoute complement SPECCTRA autorouters by providing shape-based interactive placement, floorplanning, and routing on both Windows NT and Unix platforms. SPECCTRA EditPlace allows the user to plan, place, evaluate, and modify a PCB component placement. Guided place mode selects the component with the highest connectivity and computes an optimal placement location in accordance with the rules and parameters of the design.

Move mode lets the user flip, rotate, align, push, and move individual components or groups of components. Components can also be placed by X-Y location and locked in place if desired. Floorplanning rooms can be defined to satisfy thermal, height, and power dissipation constraints. A color density analysis graphically displays circuit congestion by clearly identifying highly congested areas.

SPECCTRA EditRoute offers advanced plowing, shoving, bus routing and ghosting features. Plowing pushes existing traces aside and routes around pins; shoving moves trace segments or vias against existing traces and pushes them ahead, even over other pins and vias. The user can position vias in dense, multilayer boards by clicking at a chosen location. If there isn't enough room, the tool indicates a design-rule violation as well as legal via sites nearby.

SPECCTRA expert, a single, unified source for all of the SPECCTRA technology, includes the above auto-interactive capabilities, which enable it to cope with a host of high-speed PCB design challenges. Its ability to control stacking and offset of vias boosts the tool's automation capabilities, and its handling of multiple vias while changing layers lets the router meet the board's electrical current needs, regardless of stringency. SPECCTRA expert also features greatly improved DRC capabilities for greater quality and accuracy.

Pricing and Availability

All new SPECCTRA autorouters will include the auto-interactive capabilities of EditRoute and EditPlace, with prices starting at US $11,000. SPECCTRA expert, which constitutes the high-end bundle, including high-speed capabilities, will be priced at US $40,000. The ALIVH microvia option for SPECCTRA expert will be priced at US $5,000. All availability is second-quarter 1999.

About Matsushita

Established in Osaka, Japan, in 1918, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. is one of the world's leading producers of electronic and electric products for consumer, business and industrial use. Consolidated annual sales for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1998, reached a record 7,890.7 billion yen (US $59.78 billion). Matsushita has more than 275,000 employees worldwide, with operations including over 220 companies in 46 countries. Matsushita's products are marketed worldwide under the Panasonic, Technics, Quasar and National brand names.

Matsushita Electronic Components Co., Ltd. is a subsidiary of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. Established in Osaka, Japan in 1976, the company has 34,000 employees worldwide. Consolidated annual sales for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1998, reached a record 470 billion yen (US $3.6 billion).

Panasonic Industrial Company, a division of Matsushita Electric Corporation of America, is based in Secaucus, N.J., and is the sales and marketing channel for electronic components to customers in North America.

About Cadence

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. is the largest supplier of software products, consulting 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.

Note to Editors: Cadence, the Cadence logo, and SPECCTRA are registered trademarks and Intrica is a trademark of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. ALIVH is a trademark of Matsushita Electronic Components Co., Ltd.