NEW ON-CHIP POWER EVALUATION TOOL ANNOUNCED BY QUAD DESIGN POET

Provides Highest Accuracy Available For Submicron Design Analysis

CAMARILLO, CA -- MAY 20, 1996 -- Viewlogic Systems' Quad Design Group, a
leading supplier of high performance design analysis tools, today
introduced POET, power analysis tool which is compatible with Quad's
MOTIVE timing analysis software. POET provides the most accurate
cell-based power evaluation in the industry by considering edge-rate and
state dependent power consumption.

Existing transistor-level power estimators are too slow to handle designs
of more than 100K gates and non-simulation power estimation methods are
frequently inaccurate. POET, on the other hand, handles cells from a
single gate to entire RTL blocks, and accepts dynamic information from
logic simulators. The combination of this simulation information with a
rich modeling platform allows POET to accurately evaluate dynamic,
short-circuit and leakage power.

Tight integration with MOTIVE, Quad's industry de facto standard timing
analysis software, provides users with a powerful tool to make suitable
delay/power tradeoffs in their designs. MOTIVE and POET present timing
critical paths and hot spots, respectively. POET helps identify cells in
hot spots on non-critical paths and allows designers to exchange those
cells with slower cells, thereby reducing the power without upsetting
timing constraints. As an added benefit, this will also usually decrease
the cell area.

POET is based on proven MOTIVE technology which allows it to handle
submicron effects and provide accurate modeling of interconnect power
consumption. MOTIVE's back annotation of physical interconnect parasitics
allows POET to accurately perform post-route modeling, an important
feature as interconnects are consuming more power in submicron designs.
Since the physics behind delay and power characterizations are similar, it
is highly effective to evaluate and optimize them together to reap time
savings without significant additional overhead.

"Extending MOTIVE's rich modeling capabilities, POET considers full input
edge rate, output load and state dependency, which all have an effect on
the precision of the cell power evaluation, stated Chuck White, the Quad
group's vice president of timing analysis. "POET also gives users the
ability to choose the right accuracy/analysis time trade-offs. These
features increase tool accuracy and are not included in the majority of
gate-level power estimators on the market today."

POET also provides hierarchical control on power evaluation, critical in
locating hot spots. As opposed to flat analysis, which forces users to
track power consumption of all modules at all levels, the hierarchical
feature allows users to zoom and fade on specific modules.

The initial release of POET is tightly integrated with VCS, Viewlogic's
Chronologic Verilog simulator, the fastest on the market. Based on
customer demand, integration to other standard Verilog simulators can be
achieved through the Programming Language Interface (PLI).

POET will be demonstrated at the 1996 Design Automation Conference, June
2-6 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The product is scheduled to ship to strategic
partners and key customers in the fourth quarter of this year. Pricing
begins at $65,000, depending on platform and configuration.

Viewlogic Systems, Inc. is a worldwide supplier of electronic design
automation software. The company's design tools enable electrical
engineers to design state-of-the-art electronic products more efficiently,
while reducing both development costs and time to market. The company
offers software for both UNIX- and Windows-based computing platforms,
along with a broad range of support services.

Viewlogic's Quad Design Group is dedicated to advancing digital physics by
providing world class timing and signal analysis software for complex,
high performance digital IC, ASIC, and printed circuit board designs. The
Quad family of tools includes MOTIVE, the industry de facto timing
analysis tool, XTK, and QUIET, leaders in the signal integrity and EMI
markets, respectively. The Quad Design Group of Viewlogic Systems is
located at 1385 Del Norte Rd., Camarillo, CA 93010. Tel: 805/988-8250.
FAX: 805/988-8259.
 
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