Cadence Speeds Design-to-Market for PolarFab Customers
Latest Process Design Kit Meets Foundry's Need for Manufacturing of BiCMOS
SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 22, 2002--Cadence Design
Systems, Inc. (NYSE:CDN - News), the world's leading supplier of electronic
design products and services, and PolarFab, a U.S.-based pure-play
semiconductor foundry, today announced final acceptance of the
Cadence-developed process design kits (PDKs) for PolarFab's proven
ABC/RFBC analog BiCMOS processes. PolarFab's ABC and RFBC process
families support chips running in excess of 1.5 GHz and can safely
handle 10 V supplies.
Ratifying the new PDK, mutual Cadence-PolarFab customer Sipex
spoke out about its satisfaction with the foundry kit. A
high-performance analog chip manufacturer, Sipex confirmed the
importance of using the new PDK in reducing time-to-market for its
newest consumer product IC.
"With the Cadence-based PDK, we were able to take advantage of the
full-featured front-to-back chip design solution," said Bruce Diamond,
president and COO of Sipex. "To us, front-to-back means schematics and
simulation to layout and physical verification. The Cadence PDK
advantage cut our time-to-production down to less than half the time
traditional methods would have taken."
"As a provider of foundry services for analog high-performance
ICs, it is imperative that we offer leading edge tools to expedite
products into the marketplace," said Dennis Gaetano, vice president of
sales and marketing at PolarFab. "The Cadence PDK solution provides
first-pass foundry success and significantly improves our
customers' time-to-product."
The advantage of Cadence design tools means PolarFab is able to
provide its customers with the appropriate PDK for a specified
process. This allows the customer to begin designing immediately.
Being inherently coupled to a specific process, PDKs also allow more
accurate simulations and post-layout (parasitic extraction)
re-simulation.
"Cadence offers intelligent PDKs that provide schematic-driven
layouts resulting not only in huge savings, but, just as importantly,
address the analog/full custom layout bottleneck," said Leif Rosqvist,
vice president of services at Cadence. "There is no doubt that when
using Cadence tools instead of PC-based design solutions, the customer
can realize a significant time savings, and an increase in first pass
success."
About PolarFab
Headquartered in Minnesota, PolarFab is the only US-owned,
pure-play semiconductor foundry in the country. The company provides
silicon solutions for customer-designed integrated circuits (ICs)
through a broad range of bipolar and BiCMOS (complementary metal-oxide
semiconductor) manufacturing processes. PolarFab's focus on
exceptional customer support is provided by a creative, flexible and
responsive staff of professionals. The company offers six- and
eight-inch wafer processing, as well as testing and failure analysis
services for the analog/mixed signal and smart power IC requirements
of fabless and fab-lite semiconductor companies. For more information
call 1-800-882-3472 or visit the company online at www.polarfab.com
About Cadence
Cadence is the largest supplier of 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. IEEE,
the world's largest technical professional society, honored Cadence
with its 2002 Corporate Innovation Recognition award. With
approximately 5,600 employees and 2001 revenues of approximately $1.4
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 are
available at www.cadence.com.
Note to Editors: Cadence and the Cadence logo are registered
trademarks of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. All other trademarks are
the properties of their owners.
Contact:
Cadence Design Systems, Inc.
Judy Erkanat, 408/894-2302
jerkanat@cadence.com
