Barcelona Introduces World's First Data Converter Synthesizer

Update: Barcelona has been bought by Synopsys

SoC designers can produce data converters in hours rather than months revolutionary geometric programming scales up the complexity ladder.

Newark, Calif., May 27, 2003 - Barcelona Design Inc., the leading supplier of analog synthesis solutions, announced the Dali™ class - the world's first data converter synthesizers - running on its Prado™ analog synthesis platform and based on Barcelona's revolutionary geometric programming synthesis technology. The Dali synthesizers broaden Barcelona's offering for library developers and marks the extension of its analog synthesis solution to SOC designers. With Dali data converter synthesizers, Barcelona sets another milestone with unprecedented time-to-market acceleration, design productivity increase, and a dramatic reduction in intellectual property cost-of-ownership.

Dali synthesizers allow rapid synthesis of complex, high performance analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters in digital CMOS technologies, breaking time-to-market bottlenecks for mixed-signal SOCs. The first engine in the Dali class, a pipeline ADC engine with a range of 6-10bits and 5-80MSPS, will be released in September 2003.

Until now, this remarkable demand could not be met in a cost-effective and timely manner, leading to escalating expenditures and costly schedule slippages. Dali allows designers to customize sophisticated CMOS data converters to their specifications in less than a day.

"I am pleased with Barcelona's introduction of data converter synthesizers, which extends analog design productivity to circuits that are ten to fifty times as complex as PLLs," said Jerry Worchel, senior analyst at In-Stat/MDR. "By automatically synthesizing increasingly complex circuits, Barcelona is delivering exactly what analog designers have been asking for."

Joining Barcelona's Miró™ clocking and Picasso™ opamp synthesizers, the Dali class marks the next step in applying Barcelona's proprietary geometric programming synthesis technology to increasingly complex analog and mixed-signal circuits over the last four years. "We see no limit to the complexity of circuits that can be optimally synthesized using our technology," said Thomas Heydler, Barcelona's president and CEO. "As we progress from opamp to PLL to data converter and, in the future, ever more complex mixed-signal circuits, our customers are now able to increase design productivity and enter a new era of IP re-use which does away with time-to-market bottlenecks."

Barcelona offers an innovative breakthrough approach to analog and mixed-signal design. Unlike traditional methods of circuit design, which are based on the use of simulation as the key design tool, Barcelona's proprietary geometric programming technology synthesizes optimal circuits from top-level specification to tapeout-ready layout in a matter of hours as opposed to months of tedious and error-prone manual design.

About Barcelona Design, Inc.
Barcelona Design is the leading supplier of analog synthesis and IP solutions to semiconductor and systems companies worldwide. The company's solution consists of powerful design technology, analog intellectual property and services, and enables customers to create highly robust, product-specific analog circuits in hours rather than months. Barcelona's revolutionary synthesis technology significantly reduces design and ownership costs as well as time-to-market, and consistently improves return on IP assets for analog and mixed-signal circuits. Barcelona's solution is based on its revolutionary equation-based synthesis technology that is radically different from the simulation-based and manual methods commonly used today. The company has proven its technology with working silicon on numerous foundry and proprietary processes, and its customer include companies like Analog Devices, MediaQ, Mitsubishi and ST Microelectronics. Barcelona was founded in 1999 and has secured financing from Sequoia Capital, Foundation Capital and Crosslink Capital. The firm is headquartered in Newark, CA. For more information please visit www.barcelonadesign.com.