What does Cadence Design Systems, Inc. do? Cadence provides a complete portfolio of
products and services used to design today's sophisticated electronic products. The company
combines its leading-edge electronic design automation (EDA) software technology with a
range of professional services to help optimize its customers' product development
processes.

A long story short:

First of all, we make software. But what kind of software? Our solutions are used by companies
throughout the world to design and develop integrated circuits (ICs) and systems, including
semiconductors, computer systems and peripherals, telecommunications and networking
equipment, mobile and wireless devices, automotive electronics, consumer products, and other
advanced electronics. What does the software actually do? Consider a chip, for example.
Someone gets an idea for a microprocessor—what it will do, the size of it, and how powerful it is.
Our software helps electrical engineers turn that idea into a reality—a finished chip design,
meeting all of the technical requirements, that can be handed off for manufacturing, then sold on
the market.

Once upon a time...

EDA tools have been around for some 30 years. In the early 1960s, when the first IC hit the
market, the process of designing it was entirely manual. An electrical designer would create a
paper design (much like a blueprint) and hand it off to a professional drafter. They would, in
turn, build a "model" of the IC, cutting out representations of the different components that
made up the design and laying these out according to the paper design. A photographic-type
process was then implemented that allowed the IC to be produced. As one might guess, this
methodology was very expensive, laborious, and error-prone.

As the IC began to evolve and become more complex, so did the design process. The drafter had
more pieces that needed to be laid out, making models more intricate and difficult to build. And
due to the increased functionality being placed in the chip, designers wanted to check their
designs more often to ensure they worked. Drafters would have to build more models. To ease
some of the increased demands being placed on both the designers and drafters, IC
manufacturers began to develop a number of computer programs and systems that would
automate some of this manual process. These enabled designers to display the components that
made up the IC and check them for mistakes before they ever went to the drafters.
This technology turned out to be the catalyst for a new industry in the late '60s and early '70s,
which focused solely on the development of these EDA tools. Designing this kind of software was
becoming increasingly difficult and complex. So, IC manufacturers began purchasing tools
developed by outside EDA specialists. This allowed them to concentrate their internal resources
on their own IC designs rather than the software to make them.

But since the desktop computer did not yet exist, IC companies still had to purchase entire
design systems, including proprietary hardware, from computer-aided design (CAD)
manufacturers. These systems made it possible to design the model of the chip on the computer,
and even allowed a layout editor to virtually manipulate the different components of the design
without having to go through costly and laborious model building.

But the size of ICs continued to grow tremendously—what began as a four-transistor chip now
involved thousands of transistors. Moore's Law, formulated by Gordon Moore of Intel, which
stated that the complexity of ICs doubles every two years, was proving to be a definite reality. (It
has since been accelerated to every 18 months.) CAD systems had revolutionized the layout
portion of the design, but there was also an opportunity for automation in the logic stage (where
the "electrical drawings" are made). That's when the computer-aided engineering (CAE)
revolution began. Coincidentally, in 1980, the emergence of workstations made designing
electronics at one's desk possible. New companies emerged to provide workstation software that
would graphically depict design concepts and simulate them to see if they worked. Automatic
place-and-route software for arranging and connecting the various pieces of an IC was also
developed. This software was quickly becoming an integral tool in designing the increasingly
complex ICs that were being produced.

During this period, ECAD, Inc. and SDA Systems were formed. These two companies, pioneers in
the EDA industry, merged in 1988 to form Cadence Design Systems, Inc. Cadence continued to
improve upon the existing technologies and became an innovator within the industry. Over time,
Cadence has become the world's leading supplier of EDA software and services.

Living the future

In 1993, Cadence set a new course for the EDA industry. With customers' designs now reaching
complexities once thought unimaginable and electronic design requirements putting an increasing
strain on many companies' resources, Cadence saw an opportunity to become more than just a
tool provider for electronic product developers. Cadence aimed to become a strategic partner
who could help companies realize their electronic designs. Through the addition of significant
design expertise, the Company now works together with its customers in many capacities—
providing cutting-edge tools for electronic design, becoming a resource to help them augment
their current engineering staff, managing an entire specific design project, or acting as a
consultant on maximizing their current design environment. So whether a non-technical company
(like a toy manufacturer) needs a chip designed for them or a seasoned electronic products
manufacturer (from ICs to cellular phones) needs additional engineering resources, Cadence can
fill the need.

This idea is, to a large extent, new for the electronics industry. And Cadence is capitalizing on it
better than any other company in the business. Cadence has now become an important partner
for many companies—and even countries—to ensure their continued success in the world of
electronic product development.

While what Cadence does is technically challenging, the promise the company delivers is
relatively simple. We help companies of all kinds get electronic products to market—through the
industry's most comprehensive suite of design tools and/or through a wide variety of electronic
design services. Cadence is the Design Realization Company.