Joe Costello, best known for his stint as president and CEO of Cadence Design Systems Inc, has taken a 10% stake in Snaketech SA, a French electronic design automation company with offices in San Jose, California. The investment was part of a $3m investment that also includes James Girand, an EDA consultant, and four French venture capital companies, Auriga, Innovacom, RAC and Sudinnova.
Costello, who has most recently been associated with the relaunch of Italian mechanical computer-aided design software house Cad.Lab as Think3 Inc, said that Snaketech was addressing a growing problem in IC design. It is focusing on tools and methodologies needed to design and produce RF, analog and mixed- signal chips that work first time. The company’s Layin suite of Unix products model the IC substrate in 3D and analyze ICs for substrate noise. It also produces the cellSnake and gateSnake place and route tools for Unix and PC platforms.
Snaketech was founded in 1996. Its customers include Rambus Inc, which is integrating the company’s substrate modeling and noise analysis systems into the Rambus circuit design flow, so that designers can model and simulate the three-dimensional input structure to determine whether the specifications for input resistance are being met.
Costello was at Cadence for thirteen years, and was widely credited as the visionary behind the company’s growth and success. He left in 1997, apparently to join Larry Ellison and Michael Milken’s Knowledge Universe LLC as vice president – but within a few months he had turned up as chairman and CEO of Cad.Lab instead.
