Escalade expands offering for ASIC designers; DesignBook now supports ASIC designers using Synopsys, Verilog HDL and UNIX.

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 6, 1995--Electronic Design Automation (EDA) supplier Escalade(TM) Corporation, based here, today announced it has enhanced its DesignBook(TM), High Level Design Automation (HLDA) software, by expanding its capabilities to support experienced HLDA users, most notably, Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) designers.

These enhancements, available for volume shipments in Q3 1995, are targeted at improving support for designers using VHDL or Verilog hardware description languages (HDLs) and Synopsys synthesis tools. Enhancements include DesignBook Commanders(TM) for Cadence's Verilog-XL and Synopsys' synthesis products. DesignBook and all optional support software are also now available on the UNIX(R) platform.

DesignBook, first introduced in February 1995, initially targeted needs of the new HLDA adopter, such as an FPGA designer using VHDL on a Microsoft(R) Windows(TM) platform.

Demonstrations of DesignBook will be shown continuously during the Design Automation Conference (DAC) at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco June 12-14 in the Escalade Booth No. 816.

"Our vision of providing design productivity tools to support the full HLDA design methodology from capture through implementation has been well received by the design community," notes Mark Miller, vice president of marketing at Escalade. "To better serve the large ASIC design community already experienced in HLDA methods, we've broadened our support to include Verilog HDL, Synopsys synthesis and UNIX platforms."

To meet the needs of the experienced high-level design user, DesignBook directly addresses and simplifies the most time-consuming design tasks. Those tasks include: capturing complete design intent; generating synthesizable HDL code from a source worthy of documentation; the iterative task of building a complete test bench after many simulations during the refinement period of the design cycle; and the iterative task of trying different combinations of HDL coding style and synthesis tool switches to achieve implementation results which meet design goals.

DesignBook Capabilities

DesignBook is a seamlessly integrated set of design capture and design management tools which manage design functionality, implementation constraints, simulation stimulus and library elements. It contains a suite of design intent capture tools, including intelligent HDL text editing, graphic finite state machine descriptions and dataflow diagrams that allow the designer to express and manage all aspects of design intent in the most natural and intuitive form.

DesignBook generates a complete design, including functionally correct, expert-quality VHDL or Verilog HDL, simulation test vectors and implementation constraint files. Verilog HDL and VHDL legacy files an be imported into DesignBook.

Once design intent is expressed within DesignBook, simulation and synthesis execution scripts are automatically generated through a unique series of products known as DesignBook "Commanders."

Commanders take the high level description of the design, along with other appropriate aspects of design intent expressed within DesignBook -- constraints and testbenches, for example -- and automatically generate HDL descriptions and build execution scripts for the target synthesis or simulation tool. Simulation and Synthesis Commanders also allow jobs to be launched and managed from within DesignBook, enabling the designer to remain focused on the design, not the downstream EDA tool user interfaces.

"With DesignBook, ASIC designers can leverage their existing investment in simulation and synthesis tools," commented Miller, who added that DesignBook will help them get more productive cycles out of these tools.

A key feature of DesignBook lets designers quickly and efficiently generate design modules. Fully parameterized high-level building blocks called ModuleWare are used by Block Designer. The ModuleWare catalog contains more than 100 parameterized components ranging in complexity from multiplexers and comparators to full adders. Following instantiation and parameterization of a ModuleWare component, DesignBook will automatically expand the component into a high-quality VHDL or Verilog HDL model.

Timing is another critical component of an ASIC design, noted Miller. For capturing and documenting circuit timing relationships, DesignBook provides a stimulus and timing waveform editor called TestBench Designer. This tool generates VHDL test benches or Verilog test fixtures, compatible with popular HDL simulators. Simulation results can be imported back into TestBench Designer for analysis and reconfiguration for subsequent simulation runs.

"ASIC designers have told us that DesignBook substantially improves the management of complex designs," added Miller.

Availability and Pricing

Escalade's DesignBook, available on the PC since February 1995, will be available on the UNIX platform for volume shipments in Q3 1995. The UNIX software version is priced from $17,000. For more specific product information, contact Barry Mainz, Escalade's manager of telesales, at 408/481-1346, or email [e-mail].

Escalade was founded in 1993 with the mission to deliver software solutions that enable electronics engineers to maximize the productivity benefits of HLDA. Escalade's DesignBook accelerates time-consuming iterative design tasks such as design capture and refinement, HDL generation, test bench development, design verification and synthesis implementation to meet performance and area goals. DesignBook provides a design-centric environment that always keeps the circuit design as a focal point of the design process. Escalade employs approximately 40 professionals in offices throughout the U.S. and Japan. Corporate headquarters are located at 1210 East Arques Avenue, Sunnyvale, Calif. 94086. -0-

Note to Editors: Escalade, DesignBook, Commanders, ModuleWare and TestBench Designer are trademarks of Escalade Corporation. Escalade acknowledges trademarks or registered trademarks of other organizations for their respective products and services.

At DAC Booth No. 816

CONTACT: Escalade Corp.

Sabina Merrill, 408/481-3335

[e-mail]

or

Nanette Collins, 617/437-1822

[e-mail]