Cadence to Address Electronics Supply Chain With Unveiling of SpinCircuit, an Independent B2B E-Commerce Company.

Business Editors & High-tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 3, 2000

New Internet Portal is a Major Component of the iCadence Initiative

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (NYSE: CDN), the world's leading supplier of electronic design products and services, today announced that Cadence, Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HWP), and Flextronics International (Nasdaq:FLEX), have formed a corporation, SpinCircuit Inc.

The new, independent SpinCircuit is a business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce company that has created the only Internet gateway that directly connects engineers' design desktops to the electronics supply chain (see http://www.spincircuit.com).

According to Cadence President and CEO Ray Bingham, "SpinCircuit is the first of several electronics industry supply chain portals in which Cadence will be involved. The creation of SpinCircuit is part of the iCadence Initiative, announced last week in Paris at Design Automation and Test Europe (D.A.T.E.) (see http://www.cadence.com/press_box/na/pr/). The iCadence Initiative is our plan for leveraging the Internet to bring tremendous new value to design engineers and the electronics industry."

Bingham continued, "When engineers make design decisions, they are at the crux of making or influencing key purchasing decisions. Now, Cadence will give its customers -- the world's largest base of design engineers -- instant access to the electronics supply chain through portals that directly connect them with suppliers. These portals will streamline supply chain transactions, improve customers' time-to-market, and provide Cadence with major new business opportunities."

As an independent entity, SpinCircuit is solely focused on addressing the significant e-commerce opportunity in electronics, with partnerships as an essential component of its strategy. SpinCircuit is unique, differing in several ways from existent EDA and electronics portals. The site features a proprietary taxonomy-based component browser that "activates" component information within printed circuit board (PCB) schematic capture software.

Activeparts(TM) schematic capture symbols can be viewed and dropped directly into a schematic. Once activated, value-added information services will be available to provide automatic notification of errata and part updates, access to online support from component suppliers, filters to analyze preferred procurement and manufacturing choices, and generation of supplier-ready bills of material (BOM).

SpinCircuit will also offer free copies of its web-enabled software via the Internet, enabling direct interaction between original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), component suppliers, contract manufacturers, and others in the supply chain. SpinCircuit will collaborate with leading EDA software vendors, electronic manufacturing services companies, distributors, and contract manufacturers to develop additional data and service offerings for design engineers.

Cadence is committed to connecting all of its design tools for printed circuit board (PCB) system design to the SpinCircuit portal. It will also offer e-Services to help customers implement methodologies that leverage this new way of doing business.

"Cadence believes that B2B e-commerce is one of the most important innovations in EDA since the industry's inception," added Bingham. "It can benefit every company in the electronics supply chain, and we urge these companies to participate in this business model. It's an ideal way to contribute even more value to customers who create electronic products."

About SpinCircuit

SpinCircuit Inc. is an independent business-to-business Internet company focused on creating an entirely new concept for the global electronics supply chain. This new virtual supply chain is where the engineering desktop, component suppliers, and product manufacturers are linked together as never before. The result will be vastly improved supply chain efficiency and time-to-market for electronic products. SpinCircuit is a privately held company based in San Jose. For more information, visit the SpinCircuit design gateway at http://www.spincircuit.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 5,000 employees and 1999 annual revenue of $1.1 billion, Cadence has sales offices, design centers, and research facilities located around the world. The company is headquartered in San Jose and traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CDN. For more information, visit http://www.cadence.com.

Except for historical information, the matters discussed in this release contain forward-looking statements based on current expectations or beliefs and are subject to factors and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. For a detailed discussion of these and other cautionary statements, please refer to Cadence's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These include the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended January 1, 2000.

Note to Editors: Cadence and the Cadence logo are registered trademarks of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. SpinCircuit and Activeparts are trademarks of SpinCircuit Inc. All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners.