Cadence to Acquire Design Acceleration, Strengthens Offering for SOC Verification.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 13, 1999--

Next-generation Test Bench Creation and Analysis Technology

Targets Breakthrough Productivity for Multi-Million Gate,

Block-based Designs

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. today announced it has agreed to acquire Design Acceleration, Inc. (DAI) of San Jose, a supplier of design automation technology used in system-on-a-chip (SOC) design, for approximately $27 million in cash and Cadence common stock.

The transaction, which is subject to shareholder approval, is expected to close in the next few weeks. The approximately 40 DAI employees will join the Cadence organization.

DAI, a privately-held company and currently a member of the Cadence Connections(SM) third-party software program, offers design analysis products that enhance designer productivity through a flexible, intuitive analysis environment for design debug. DAI's product portfolio includes DAI Signalscan (TM) for waveform viewing; DAI Coverscan (TM) for code coverage analysis; and DAI Comparescan (TM) for simulation comparisons and rules-based analysis.

DAI's current products, as well as breakthrough technologies currently under development for high-level functional test bench creation and analysis, will be integrated with Cadence's complete system-to-silicon implementation flow improving the overall efficiency of verification for today's leading-edge, multi-million gate SOC devices.

"DAI's product roadmap and vision for future technologies complement the Cadence strategy for SOC," said Glenn Abood, vice president for design and verification products at Cadence.

"DAI already has a proven track record in solving today's design analysis challenges and is developing some excellent new technology that will be a critical component of the next-generation design flow. It will provide the productivity boost needed to enable verification of multiple, large blocks of system functionality in a single chip."

Dean Drako, president and CEO of DAI, said the majority of its users are already Cadence customers. "The acquisition by Cadence provides us with a unique opportunity to improve the productivity of our customers through direct links and flow-based integration into Cadence's SOC design and industry-leading simulation environment.

"Additionally, by leveraging the Cadence distribution channel to bring our leading-edge technology to the broader market, we can remain focused on what we do best -- developing easy-to-use, high performance design verification and analysis tools."

DAI's new technology development efforts target next-generation test bench creation and analysis. This will be accomplished through a unique approach that elevates the verification process to the higher transaction level, and does not require a methodology shift or the invention of a new verification language.

The DAI technology will allow engineers to develop high-level verification test benches in the industry standard languages (HDL and "C") they currently use at the gate and register transfer levels. Unlike first-generation tools, DAI's product roadmap will feature a unified design and debug environment, a significant productivity enhancement for dealing with the multi-million gate functional blocks used to build SOC devices.

This is a major advantage as compared to other approaches that force engineers to switch back and forth between separate design and verification environments.

About Design Acceleration, Inc.

Founded in 1993, Design Acceleration, Inc. is a privately held company with headquarters in San Jose. The company is focused on providing hardware design engineers with superior design verification and analysis tools that significantly reduce design time.

More than 400 major corporations including Broadcom, Compaq, Cyrix, Hitachi, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Intel, Motorola, National Semiconductor, Nortel, Silicon Graphics, Sony, Sun Microsystems, and Texas Instruments have purchased DAI products. The company is located at 1590 The Alameda, San Jose, CA 95126; 408/885-1885, fax [phone], email: [e-mail], internet: http://www.designacc.com.

About Cadence

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. provides comprehensive services and software for the product development requirements of the world's leading electronics companies. Cadence 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 electronic-based products.

With more than 4,000 employees and 1997 annual sales of $916 million, 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 may be obtained from the World Wide Web at http://www.cadence.com.

This release contains forward-looking statements based on current expectations or beliefs, as well as a number of assumptions about future events, that are subject to factors and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. The reader is cautioned not to put undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which are not a guarantee of future performance and are subject to a number of uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside the control of Cadence and DAI. The forward-looking statements in this release address a variety of subjects including, for example, the potential benefits of the merger. The following factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in these forward-looking statements: the risk that DAI's business will not be successfully integrated with Cadence's business; costs associated with the merger; the inability to obtain the approval of DAI's shareholders; and increased competition and technological changes in the industry in which Cadence and DAI compete. For a detailed discussion of these and other cautionary statements, please refer to Cadence's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 1997 and their respective Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 1998.

Note to Editors: Cadence and the Cadence logo are registered trademarks and Cadence Connections is a service mark of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. DAI Signalscan, DAI Comparescan, and DAI Coverscan are trademarks of Design Acceleration, Inc. All others are properties of their holders.