Contacts:       Pamela Parrish                                                              Jill Jacobs                           
EDA Consortium                                                          The Leapfrog Group
Phone: 408-579-2499                                                    Phone:  650-322-4278
Email: parrish@edac.org                                             Email: jj@leapfrogroup.com

SONY Computer Entertainment Inc. Earns Top Design Award for Graphics Synthesizer; SANYO Electric, Ltd. Honored for Digital Camera with Still and Motion Capabilities

LAS VEGAS, Nevada, June 18, 2001¾The EDA (Electronic Design Automation) Consortium awarded its 2001 Design Achievement Gold Award to SONY Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) for its Graphics Synthesizer^® I-32, a highly integrated chip that delivers a level of graphic visual quality, especially video, never seen before.  SANYO Electric Company, Ltd., was presented the Design Achievement Silver Award for its mega-pixel, real-time image system-on-chip used in its still and motion digital cameras. Announced today here at the Design Automation Conference, the Design Achievement Awards honor excellence and ingenuity in silicon chip and system design using electronic design tools.

 “We are delighted to recognize these two electronic leaders for their significant achievements in semiconductor and consumer electronics,” said Ray Bingham, Consortium chair and president and CEO of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. “The outstanding quality of their winning designs exemplifies the combined innovative power of electronic design technology and engineering talent in meeting the demand for technologically advanced electronics faster than ever before.”

As the leader in high-end computer entertainment products such the PlayStation® 2 computer entertainment system, SCEI developed its Graphics Synthesizer^®I-32 to significantly advance the life-like image quality for video, film, animation, virtual reality and other media.  With eight times more integrated memory than PlayStation2, the level of integration on this system-on-chip (SOC) was generally not believed possible for another generation   The Graphics Synthesizer^®I-32 chip delivers industry leading performance with a rendering speed of 75 mega-polygons per second resulting in a higher resolution where pictures become more life-like and video becomes more realistic.

“We had an enormous challenge in trying to build a chip of this size, almost 300 million transistors integrated onto a single chip,” said Hidetaka Magoshi, vice president, System LSI Design of SONY Computer Entertainment Inc. “Using a combination of EDA tools and methodology, our design team was able to deliver a fully functional chip on first silicon in just ten weeks.”  Magoshi also added, “To our knowledge, this is the highest system-on-chip (SOC) integration reported to date.”

Featuring eight and a half million transistors on a single chip, SANYO Electric’s real-time image processor is the first of its kind used in still and motion digital cameras, including its SANYO Digital Camera (SX-560) and the Digital Disk Camera (IDC-1000Z) and others. This SOC handles all of the camera functions including a full host of sophisticated features. With optimal image quality and exceptional speed, SANYO’s cameras achieve natural looking still pictures of 15 to 30 frames per second and VGA-size video clips of 30 frames per second – about the same as normal TV images.  Advanced electronic features include 120 minutes of video clip recording, 12000 still pictures, VHS quality movies, animation mode, USB interface and quick and easy editing.

Noting the importance of EDA tools in significantly improving productivity, Dr. Keiichi Yodoshi, General Manager of SANYO’s Microelectronics Research Center said, “We are honored to receive this prestigious award recognizing the accomplishments of our chip development team. We also recognize the EDA industry for providing the innovative design tools and technology that had significant impact on the success of this chip. Previous chips, less complex than this one, have consumed a minimum of three months for just one or two parts of the design.  Using EDA, our chip took only one month for physical execution, dramatically increasing productivity without sacrificing product quality.”

About the Design Achievement Award

Established in 1998, the Design Achievement Award was created to honor the innovative use of EDA tools and the companies that use these tools to create outstanding products. Co-sponsored with EE Times and the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society, the design team winning the Gold Award receives a $20,000 prize and the Silver Award team receives at $5,000 price.  Past winners include Motorola, AMD, Siemens AG, and Acuson Corporation.  This year, the Consortium received twice as many award nominations over the previous year, emphasizing the vital role of electronic design automation (EDA) in developing every electronic device.

About Electronic Design Automation (EDA)

Where Electronics Begins™ best describes Electronic Design Automation, the fundamental means by which electronic engineering ideas become reality. The EDA industry provides the software and design services vital to the creation and delivery of the world’s electronic products.  Virtually every major semiconductor and electronics systems company in the world¾ including semiconductors, consumer electronics, communications, computers, automotive, medical and aerospace¾use its’ tools and services.  The industry employs over 20,000 people and more than 500,000 people use its tools and services.

About the EDA Consortium

Founded in 1989, the EDA Consortium is an international association of companies engaged in the development, manufacture, and sale of electronic design automation tools and services. The Consortium’s mission is to promote the health of the industry and does so by leading forums to discuss industry issues, sponsoring the DAC and DATE conferences, and disseminating relevant information such as revenue statistics through the Market Statistics Service. The Consortium is composed of a board of directors of industry CEOs with active committees and supporting staff.  

For more information, contact EDA Consortium, 111 West Saint John Street, Suite 220, San Jose, California 95113, USA, office 408-287-3322, fax 408-283-5283, or visit www.edac.org.

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