China Suzhou CAS IC Design Center and Cadence Cooperate to Boost Local IC Design Industry.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SUZHOU, People's Republic of China--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 13, 2003

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (NYSE:CDN) today announced that China Suzhou CAS IC Design Center (SZ-CAS ICDC) has employed Cadence(R) EDA platforms in its essential IC design platform.

SZ-CAS ICDC, a non-commercial organization set up by Suzhou Municipal Government and China Academy of Sciences, aims to incubate IC design start-ups in Suzhou, the 3,000-year-old Chinese city. This is yet another demonstration of the long-term commitment by Cadence to boost China's IC design industry with the Chinese government.

SZ-CAS ICDC enables start-ups to use Cadence advanced nanometer digital and custom IC design solutions. The Cadence Encounter(TM) digital IC design platform offers an integrated RTL-to-GDSII flow, which deploys the Cadence continuous convergence methodology to ensure chips are successful both in timing, signal integrity and power integrity signoff at 130nm and below. The Cadence custom IC design solution enables a Rapid Analog Prototyping (RAP) flow through automatic device sizing and layout. The solution enhances productivity and quality of custom design further with the Cadence automatic custom physical design (ACPD) flow that enables connectivity-driven place and route with parameterized cells.

"Today's fast growing IC Design market in China is full of opportunities, yet very challenging for start-up companies to live and grow," said Dr. Yang, general manager of SZ-CAS ICDC. "Cadence not only demonstrated its comprehensive technology capabilities and design expertise, but also helped tailor the design platforms to meet our specific requirements, such as advanced CPU, IP block and SoC design, and provided advanced training sessions to recruit local talent. It is critical to our future growth and success. SZ-CAS ICDC is very satisfied with the cooperation with Cadence and looks forward to strengthening our win-win partnership in the future to boost the IC industry in Suzhou."

"I am very glad to work with SZ-CAS IC Design Center after collaborating on ARCO CPU design with CAS," said Peter Chen, president of Cadence China and Hong Kong Operations. "The IC design center in Suzhou industry zone is full of potential. It is a high jumping-off-point organization which devotes to make Suzhou and China one of the focus regions of electronic information industry worldwide. It has excellent and professional IC design teams, visionary management with modern criterion. SZ-CAS ICDC is believed to impact the IC industry in Suzhou and China in the near future. Cadence is committed to supporting the booming electronics industry in China with our leading technologies and services. We will continue to collaborate with SZ-CAS ICDC to incubate local IC design companies and optimize the design chain."

About China Suzhou CAS IC Design Center

SZ-CAS ICDC is a non-profit organization established by Suzhou Government and Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. SZ-CAS ICDC is responsible for developing IC industry, providing full-scale services, such as advanced EDA software and hardware platform, technology, information, talents, financing, to IC design enterprises in Suzhou area. It has complete advanced IC design software and hardware platform; It is furnished with many kinds of distinguished EDA design software to satisfy full design flow requirement of design craftworks at 130nm and above; It also provides SoC development and verification platform based on RISC cores and 24-hour services.

About Cadence

Cadence is the world's leader in electronic design technologies, methodology services, and design services. Cadence solutions are 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 2002 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.

Cadence, the Cadence logo, and Silicon Ensemble are registered trademarks of Cadence Design Systems, Inc, and SoC Encounter and VoltageStorm are Cadence trademarks. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.