Intel Corp and Microsoft Corp snared four high-end electronic design automation software houses to support their renewed NT-on- Intel workstation push at the end of last week (CI No 3,363). While the presence of Synopsys Inc, Mentor Graphics Corp, Structured Dynamics Research Corp and Parametric Corp at the event comes as no surprise (CI No 3,337), it is significant to have formal commitments over NT workstations from the major players in a market segment that has until now been skeptical about the capabilities of NT and Intel as compared against Unix and RISC. Synopsys Corp, generally regarded as the last hold-out, actually went public on its decision a few weeks prior to the Microsoft-Intel conference (CI No 3,354), saying it planned to have many of its EDA chip development tools, including Design Compiler and Chronologic VCS, running on NT/Intel by the end of the year. It also plans to offer the choice of supporting mixed networks of Windows NT and Unix systems, and will work on 64-bit versions of its software for Intel’s Merced. Synopsys hopes to get its Unix partners, such as Sun Microsystems Inc, IBM Corp, Hewlett-Packard Co and Digital Equipment Corp working on interoperability issues for mixed Unix and NT environments. Parametric Technology Corp announced the launch of version 2 of the DesignWave desktop CAD software it inherited from Computervision Corp. DesignWave is a native Windows low-end package, but Parametric says it’s nearly ready to come to market with NT-versions of Computervision’s high-end CADDS product line, and already has a version of the Medusa 2D package for NT. Its own Pro/Engineer software has now made the transition bar a few specialist modules. Parametric says a third of all new seats added last year were for NT hardware. Mentor Graphics Corp says it should have front-to-back design products up on NT by year- end, including Renoir for graphical entry, Board Station for printed circuit board design and ModelSim for ASIC simulation. It’s signed up Fairfax, Virginia-based DataFocus Inc for its NuTCracker Unix to NT migration tool to help speed the process up. Finally SDRC, which launched its first NT products in 1995, says it will support NT versions of its two main CAD/CAM/CAE product lines, I-DEAS Master and Artisan Series, as well as its Metaphase Enterprise product data management tool, with support for customers migrating from Unix.
