Cadence and UMC Expand Partnership for Deep Submicron CMOS Designs; UMC Joins with Cadence to Provide PDKs for Fabless Market.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 1, 2001

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (NYSE:CDN) and foundry leader United Microelectronics Corporation (NYSE:UMC) have worked together to provide more complete solutions to designers of digital, analog, RF, and mixed-signal ICs. Cadence(R), the world's leading supplier of electronic design products and services, and UMC, one of the world's leading pure-play foundries, have announced the initial deliverables of their ongoing joint development work -- 10 new process design kits (PDKs). The new PDKs are expected to substantially streamline the design process.

"This is all about working together to better serve our mutual customers. Our two companies have worked closely to jointly bring these PDKs, and the associated competitive advantages, to our customers," said Lavi Lev, senior vice president and general manager, IC Solutions Business at Cadence. "Cadence and UMC are working to strengthen the design chain in the COT (customer-owned tooling) business model for digital, analog, RF, and mixed-signal ICs. Solutions such as these are essential in order to achieve digital-analog design convergence."

The new PDKs will encompass the UMC array of offerings within its 0.25-, 0.18-, and 0.13-micron CMOS technologies. They will enable UMC and Cadence customers to immediately begin designs by focusing on designing chips rather than developing required process design kits. The PDKs provide a symbol library and technology file for the design automation flow, and DRC-correct parameterized cells to automate device generation. They are validated with the UMC Cadence Spectre(R) models in the Cadence RF/analog mixed-signal design solution, which includes Composer, Analog Design Environment, Spectre/Spectre-RF, Virtuoso(R), and Assura(TM)/Diva(R) for physical verification.

"This is a first for the foundry industry," said Edward Wan, vice president of worldwide field engineering at United Microelectronics. "The Cadence/UMC PDKs, combined with the Assura physical verification technology flow, provide our customers with a comprehensive solution for mixed-signal design, verification, and implementation of system-on-a-chip design."

Mutual Cadence and UMC customers agree. "We are excited about this new approach to our working relationship with UMC and Cadence which will provide us with new process design kits to meet our next-generation RF analog/mixed-signal design needs," said Brett Johnson, design systems manager in the Agilent Imaging Electronics Division. "By combining Cadence tools with an outside foundry, we are developing an effective means to deliver value and satisfy our customers worldwide."

Gain Technology, a provider of IC design and development services to semiconductor and OEMs worldwide, is one of the companies that have already achieved quicker tape-outs with foundry PDKs.

"We are currently using the UMC 0.18-micron PDK," said Bob Burns, CAD engineering manager for Gain. "The availability of this off-the-shelf PDK allows us to immediately focus our resources on circuit design rather than design kit development. We are confident our design team will meet its aggressive design schedule for tape-out. We look forward to working with UMC and Cadence as they continue to provide us with the support and foundry design kits that are needed to meet our demanding requirements."

The 0.18-micron logic process design kits for both logic and the mixed-mode/RF processes are now available for download from the UMC website, http://www.umc.com.

About UMC

UMC, a world-leading semiconductor foundry, operates multiple wafer fabs in Taiwan's Hsinchu Science Park. The UMC Japanese subsidiary, Nippon Foundry Inc., has one fab in Japan, and the UMC joint venture with Hitachi, Trecenti Technologies, began pilot production in its 300mm fab in Japan in 2000. The UMC 300mm facility in Taiwan's Tainan Science Park began pilot production in June 2001, and the company has begun construction on UMCi, a third 300mm fab based in Singapore. UMC is a leader in foundry technology, with facilities that reached an annual output of over 2.4 million eight-inch equivalent wafers in 2000 and shipped more silicon wafers in 0.18 micron and smaller technologies than any other foundry that year. The UMC 0.13 micron process combines up to 8 copper metal layers with true low-k dielectric materials. UMC serves customers around the world through sales and marketing offices located in the United States, Japan, and the Netherlands. UMC can be found on the web at http://www.umc.com.

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 approximately 5,700 employees and 2000 revenues of approximately $1.3 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, its products, and services is available at www.cadence.com.

Note to Editors: Cadence, the Cadence logo, Virtuoso, Spectre, and Diva are registered trademarks and Assura is a trademark of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.