Cadence Expands Portfolio of System-Level Verification IP and SpeedBridge Adapters to Boost Acceleration and Emulation Performance

The New System VIP and SpeedBridge Adapters Speed Up Time to Market and Improve Quality, Further Extending Cadence Leadership in VIP Portfolio Breadth and Depth

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Nov 3, 2008 -- Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CDNS), the leader in global electronic design innovation, today expanded its system verification IP (VIP) and Cadence® SpeedBridge® Adapters portfolio with a focus on transaction-based acceleration (TBA) and in-circuit emulation use models. The expanded Cadence portfolio focuses on standard protocols for the wireless, networking, storage and multimedia vertical markets, enabling system verification and validation engineers to ramp-up their environment in days, improving the final quality of their software and hardware for a low-risk path to first-working silicon with first-working software. The portfolio also reinforces the Cadence VIP leadership position in Open Verification Methodology (OVM) advanced testbench VIP.

The new SpeedBridge Adapters support SATA, SAS, USB 2.0 and Fibre Channel protocols. The USB Host SpeedBridge Adapter allows the emulated design to interface with real USB devices such as thumb drives, disk drives and cameras. The USB SpeedBridge Adapter pair (host and device) enables customers to validate a complete design with USB 2.0 protocol in a real system environment.

The new SATA, SAS and Fibre Channel SpeedBridge Adapters target storage applications. They allow the full speed SATA hard drive, the SCSI Disk Enclosure or the Fibre Channel switches to be connected to the emulated storage controller designs. Cadence emulators and the SpeedBridge Adapters provide the real-world environment required for system-level testing to quickly achieve the complete end-to-end validation solution.

“Cadence SpeedBridge Adapters have always been a key part of the fast bring-up time for our emulated design in a ‘real life’ environment for many projects. We have successfully deployed PCI-X, PCI Express as well as Video SpeedBridge Adapters,” said Junway Fang, engineering manager of S3 Graphics. “These solutions allowed our software teams to develop many applications before first silicon arrived and thus greatly reduced our development time. We are delighted to hear about the expansion of the Cadence SpeedBridge Adapters and system-level VIP portfolio.”

Cadence SpeedBridge Adapters connect Cadence emulators to external systems, networks, test equipment and mother boards running at full speed, enabling system engineers to emulate the design with real application requirements, such as booting the operating system, transferring files, and displaying graphics and video. The adapters are provided as a reusable solution, and are offered as plug-n-play or as customizable products.

Cadence has expanded its broad portfolio of SpeedBridge Adapters to support vertical solutions for 11 protocols and emulation environments, including PCI Express 2.0, SAS, SATA and USB 2.0.

The new PCI Express 2.0 and 10 Gbit Ethernet TBA VIP support Cadence advanced transaction-based acceleration verification and fulfill the requirements of PCI Express 2.0 and Ethernet protocols. The PCI Express 2.0 TBA VIP supports both root complex and endpoint devices while the Ethernet TBA VIP supports MII, GMII and XGMII interfaces. These VIP products are built with accelerated and synthesizable bus functional models (BFM) and provide an easy-to-configure transaction-level model interface.

Cadence system-level verification IP supports transaction-based acceleration and assertion-based acceleration (ABA). Cadence system-level VIP provides cutting-edge technology in a multi-language and comprehensive solution environment. Cadence TBA VIP supports testbenches and debug/analysis at a high level of abstraction (SystemC, C/C++) or Hardware Verification Language (HVL). Cadence now offers TBA VIP for nine protocols, including AMBA AHB, AMBA AXI, and PCI Express 1.0a/2.0.

“The portfolio of SpeedBridge Adapters and system-level VIP further enables Cadence to provide our customers technology leadership in acceleration and emulation,” said Ran Avinun, System Design and Verification marketing group director. “The portfolio provides Xtreme and Palladium Accelerator/Emulator series customers the best ROI with reusability, fast bring-up time and high verification quality for variety of vertical markets.”

The Cadence portfolio of hardware VIP now supports vertical solutions for the following protocols and emulation environments:

ARM (7, 9, 11 & cortex-A9)	FibreChannel	Ethernet
PCI	PCI-X	PCI Express 1.1
PCI Express 2.0	SAS v1.1	SATA 1.0a
USB 1.1/ 2.0	Video/Audio

Cadence offers TBA VIP for the following protocols:

AMBA AHB	AMBA AXI	Ethernet
I2C	PCI	PCI Express 1.0a
PCI Express 2.0	UART	Video Stream

Detailed information about Cadence system verification IP (VIP) and SpeedBridge Adapters can be found at www.cadence.com/Products/sd/Pages/systemlevelverip.aspx. The complete list of industry-leading Cadence portfolio of OVM advanced testbench VIP, assertion-based VIP, system verification IP, and SpeedBridge Adapters can be found at www.cadence.com/products/sd/Pages/default.aspx.

About Cadence
Cadence enables global electronic design innovation and plays an essential role in the creation of today's integrated circuits and electronics. Customers use Cadence software and hardware, methodologies, and services to design and verify advanced semiconductors, consumer electronics, networking and telecommunications equipment, and computer systems. Cadence reported 2007 revenues of approximately $1.6 billion, and has approximately 5,100 employees. The company is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., with sales offices, design centers, and research facilities around the world to serve the global electronics industry. More information about the company, its products, and services is available at www.cadence.com.