Cadence Issues an Open Letter to EDA Company Leaders; Now is the Time to Step Up and Support OpenAccess

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 13, 2003--Cadence Design Systems, Inc. Issues an Open Letter to EDA Company Leaders

Dear Colleagues:

In my open letter of May 2002, I called on all EDA companies to support the creation of an open, interoperable infrastructure among databases. We at Cadence are excited to report great progress of this open, industry standard database and API for true design tool interoperability. With support of OpenAccess Coalition members, we are also proposing structural and procedural changes within the Coalition to accelerate support of OpenAccess by other EDA companies.

OpenAccess technology met or exceeded customer expectations during extensive beta testing at the end of 2002. On schedule, Cadence delivered the code to the OpenAccess Coalition, which, on January 8, 2003, released OpenAccess version 2.0. It is available for downloading at no cost from www.OpenEDA.org.

OpenAccess version 2.0 provides the infrastructure needed to meet the technological requirements for nanometer IC design. OpenAccess features high capacity, high performance, and supports both digital and analog/mixed-signal content. It also supports both 32- and 64-bit platforms and thread-safe C++ architecture. In addition, it uniquely offers extensibility and concurrent processing of data.

Applications ported to OpenAccess are showing orders-of-magnitude improvement in performance and capacity compared with existing design databases. When leveraging the OpenAccess data format, significant reductions of data exchange cycle times and file sizes are achieved. This technology has realized its intent: to be the ideal interoperable environment for companies to develop advanced capabilities for their customers.

With tested, proven code now available, we are focused on making it even easier for EDA vendors to step up and support OpenAccess. To gain broader industry participation, we support accelerating the date-from the end of 2004 to now-on which Cadence allows the OpenAccess Change Management Committee to take full control of code and feature changes, and upgrades. We also recommend expanding this committee by adding a third architect and invite Synopsys to fill this position to help drive this crucial industry effort.

All of us in EDA and electronics know that no single company can solve all the challenges of nanometer design. By collaborating on OpenAccess, we can build better bridges between databases on the way to delivering a truly open, interoperable design infrastructure. I sincerely invite your companies to join Cadence and the other Coalition members in the drive to achieve interoperability among databases.

Sincerely,

Lavi Lev

Cadence Design Systems, Inc.

Member of the OpenAccess Coalition

More information and the OpenAccess Version 2 code are available at www.OpenEDA.org.

CONTACT: Armstrong Kendall, Inc.
             Jen Bernier, 415/824-1026