Valid Logic Systems has signed to offer turnkey systems consisting of its electronic design automation tools on Sun Microsystems’ workstations. The OEM agreement commits Valid to buying $10m of Sun workstations over the next 18 months and it also includes a joint marketing agreement and co-operation on future technology development. Valid intends to sell the Sun workstations as turnkey systems having added its CAE, integrated circuit design and circuit board design tools. Each company will keep the other au fait, and they will swap advance copies and, where appropriate help to implement them. Valid has also applied a new technique to its Allegro circuit board design system, and its ValidCompose chip architecture design tool. Valid claims that the rules-driven design methodology gives the engineer greater control over the physical layout: by assigning properties to particular graphical elements in the schematic, the engineer can drive through explicit considerations for layout. Allegro is currently in beta test sites and ships will begin in August. Running as a turnkey circuit board design system on a Sun 3/110, it will cost around $70,000 for single unit quantities. ValidCompose is also in beta test and is scheduled for delivery in September at $20,000.
