Cirrus Logic Selects Silvaco as Preferred SPICE Vendor.

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 4, 1997--Silvaco International today announced that Cirrus Logic, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRUS), a leading manufacturer of advanced integrated circuits for multimedia, communications, and mass storage applications, has selected Silvaco's SmartSpice circuit simulator as the company-wide standard for circuit analysis.

The initial contract provides Cirrus Logic with over 100 seats, allowing the company to transition to the SmartSpice circuit simulation software at all of its design facilities. SmartSpice is now being used for circuit analysis at the company's Fremont, Calif. headquarters as well as its several design centers.

"SmartSpice features, such as good emulation of other simulators, support for industry standards, exceptional run time performance, and easy integration into our 0.25-micron standard-cell characterization flow were key factors in making this critical decision," said Jed Krohnfeldt, Director of Design Methodology at Cirrus Logic.

"We expect SmartSpice to provide Cirrus Logic with circuit analysis capabilities that will effectively support all groups for analysis and characterization of blocks, macros, and design modules for deep sub-micron designs now and into the future. In addition, the multi-thread parallel processing capabilities of SmartSpice provide a unique and very attractive alternative for accurate deep sub-micron clock tree and critical path analysis."

"We are extremely pleased that Silvaco's SmartSpice has been selected by this leading world-class semiconductor company," said Dr. Ivan Pesic, President and CEO of Silvaco International.

"Silvaco continues to invest heavily in the development of SmartSpice to provide the semiconductor industry with a circuit analysis solution that meets the need for rapid and effective implementation of the latest analog simulation technologies. As the only remaining significant independent analog EDA vendor, we are uniquely positioned to deliver the software applications required for simulating today's complex IC technologies and designs.

"We are also pleased that companies such as Cirrus Logic are now realizing the benefits of our efforts to remove the productivity constraints that have historically been caused by the lack of a sufficient number of licenses, speed and convergence shortcomings of other commercially available SPICE products, or a lack of effective technical support."

About SmartSpice

SmartSpice from Silvaco provides both the industry leading performance that is required for modern analog designs, and a licensing policy that addresses critical productivity constraints faced by the design departments of IC design and manufacturing companies. The advanced device model technology and innovative numerics in SmartSpice provide unmatched speed, accuracy and convergence.

With Parallel threads also available for shared memory parallel (SMP) UNIX workstations, SmartSpice offers the runtime performance required for fast and accurate simulation of very large circuit designs. SmartSpice is available and fully compatible on both UNIX and PC platforms, and offers complete compatibility with other major commercially available simulators.

Pricing for SmartSpice on all major UNIX platforms starts at $15,000 and for Windows NT at $3,750, with volume discounts available on site license purchases.

About Silvaco

Founded in 1984, and headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., Silvaco International is the leading supplier of physically-based design tools for the semiconductor industry.

Semiconductor companies worldwide use Silvaco's tools in all phases of IC technology development ranging from simulation of semiconductor manufacturing processes and device performance, to generation of SPICE models, and simulation and optimization of circuit performance. Silvaco today operates ten worldwide sales and support offices covering all major semiconductor manufacturing regions throughout North America, Asia and Europe.

CONTACT: Silvaco International

Joseph Gow, 408/654-4376