SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — Analog synthesis and intellectual property (IP) provider Barcelona Design Inc. is shutting down, EE Times has learned. Launched with a Web-based business model in 1999, the company was unsuccessful in turning its analog compilation technology into a profitable business.
"It's a sad tale of how great technology can go wrong," said Joe Costello, Barcelona chairman and former CEO of Cadence Design Systems Inc. Costello confirmed that Barcelona, which won around $44 million in venture capital funding, is winding down its operations and seeking a buyer for its technology.
Barcelona was formed in the late 1990's by Stanford University PhDs and Silicon Valley venture capitalists. The company claimed breakthrough analog synthesis technology, and pioneered a Web-based model through which designers would access the technology on a pay-per-use basis. Customers would license Barcelona's intellectual property (IP) along with its synthesis tool, then use the tool to optimize circuits for a specific process.
Barcelona started with small circuits such as op amps, but that wasn't a big enough business for the expectations that had been set for the company, Costello noted. So Barcelona started chasing the "holy grail" of large IP blocks such as PLLs, A/D converters, and D/A converters.
The problem, Costello noted, is that those large IP blocks were very complicated to design, given the need to account for process variations. And there wasn't as much of a market as the company had hoped. "It was more or less a service and consulting type of business, and it was a niche," he said.
