VeriSilicon Holdings Co., Ltd. (VeriSilicon), a world-class ASIC design foundry and custom solutions provider, has joined the Power Forward Initiative (PFI) and plans to offer a Common Power Format (CPF)-based design solution for its ASIC customers.

VeriSilicon uses the Cadence® Design Systems, Inc. Low-Power Solution, the industry's leading and complete flow that integrates logic design, verification, and implementation technologies with the Si2-approved Common Power Format. Using this comprehensive approach to low-power design, teams can improve productivity, reduce risk, and achieve superior tradeoff among timing, power, and area requirements.

"Low-power design is critical for multimedia, wireless and communication applications," said Nianfeng Li, corporate vice president of Design Methodologies at VeriSilicon. "We have joined the Power Forward Initiative to contribute our low-power expertise in support of the broad, industry-wide move to low-power electronic design. VeriSilicon has worked with Cadence to deploy this advanced low-power solution for our ASIC customers. We expect that CPF will streamline the entire low-power design process to help customers meet their market requirements on time."

"VeriSilicon, with its focus on the fast growing market in China, brings a unique perspective to the Power Forward Initiative. Their participation will help accelerate the use of low-power technologies in the industry," said Pankaj Mayor, group director of Business Enablement at Cadence. "We applaud VeriSilicon's commitment and investment of resources to support the Power Forward Initiative and look forward to their participation."

CPF, an Si2-approved standard format, is used for specifying power-saving techniques early in the design process -- enabling sharing and reuse of low-power intelligence throughout the design process. The Cadence Low-Power Solution is the industry's first complete flow that integrates logic design, verification, and implementation with the Si2-standard Common Power Format.

About Power Forward Initiative
The Power Forward Initiative, which has more than 25 member companies, is an industry initiative sponsored by Cadence that was formed in May 2006. It has the goal of enabling the design and production of more power-efficient electronic devices. The initiative includes companies representing a broad cross section of the design chain including system, semiconductor, foundry, IP, EDA, ASIC and design services companies. CPF was contributed by Cadence to the Si2 Low Power Coalition in December 2006 and CPF 1.0 is now available as an Si2 standard to the industry at large. The Initiative has recently published A Practical Guide to Low-Power Design — User experience with CPF which is aimed at educating the broad design marketplace in utilizing advanced low-power design techniques. The Guide is available free of charge at www.powerforward.org.