With a claimed 60% share of the Japanese integrated circuit lay out market, Seiko Instruments Inc hopes to take on the US majors on their home territory and pull the same trick there. It is entering the US market with a multi-million dollar research and development effort that will see a combined research and marketing staff of 20 in the US and 150 in Japan in place by 1991, and it plans to start shipp ing systems in the US by mid-1990. It has tapped David Hightower, a 23-year electron ic design veteran as director of product development for the new US Electronic Design Automation Systems Group in San Jose: he has held similar development positions at Valid Logic, GE Calma, GE Microelect ronics Center, Texas Instruments and AT&T Bell Laborarories. The San Jose team is now developing automatic block placement and routing tools to be integrated with Seiko’s integrated circuit layout, schematic capture, database, design rule check, pattern generation and electron beam software and sold worldwide. Seiko, which got into the business by doing chips for its watches, says its kit is used by over 50 major Japanese chipmakers and universities for work such as designing 16M-bit memories.
