The Power Forward Initiative
(PFI) today announced that three Japanese design services companies
recently joined the initiative and are offering Common Power Format
(CPF)-enabled low-power design capabilities to their design services
customers. With the addition of these three leading Japanese design
centers — NIPPON SYSTEMWARE CO., LTD. (NSW), Dai Nippon Printing Co.,
Ltd. (DNP) and Toppan Technical Design Center Co., Ltd. — the PFI
increases its membership to over 30 companies around the world,
representing a broad spectrum of IC design, IP, service and
manufacturing providers.
All three design services companies have adopted the
Cadence® Design Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CDNS) Low-Power Solution, which
integrates leading-edge design, verification and implementation
technology with the widely deployed CPF standard to deliver an
end-to-end low-power design solution to IC engineers. By preserving
low-power design intent throughout the design process, the solution
eliminates laborious manual work, reduces power-related chip failure,
and provides power predictability early in the design process, enabling
sharing and reuse of low-power intelligence throughout the design
process.
NSW is an independent IT company and a leading provider of
embedded total solutions in the LSI design service market. NSW assists
customers designing ICs for graphics, communication/network, mechanical
control applications and ARM-embedded SoCs as an ARM-approved design
center.
"Low-power design is considered ecologically friendly, and
is therefore becoming a key requirement for designers of ICs targeting
consumer products," said Seiichi Koseki, associate general manager,
System Logic Technology division of NSW. "By using the Common Power
Format for low-power hand-off, we can deliver low-power designs to our
customers faster and meet their requirements more consistently."
DNP provides LSI design services for a variety of
applications, including microprocessors for consumer electronics, ASICs
and SoCs, mixed-signal, memory, CCD and CMOS image sensors, display
drivers, and power supplies through its subsidiary for LSI design
service, DNP LSI Design Co., Ltd.
"The Common Power Format will allow our design teams to
increase designer productivity and reduce energy consumption which is
valuable to our customers," said Yasuo Jimbo, general manager of LSI
Design & Development Department, 1st Sales Division, Electronic
Device Operations at DNP. "Through our design consulting services, we
have experienced the value of CPF-based low-power design."
Toppan Technical Design Center provides custom, multipurpose
services, including systems design, logic design, and chip-level and IP
integration using C-level or HDL design as well as chip-level layout.
Toppan also provides capabilities and superior technologies for
ARM-based design as an ARM-approved design center, as well as analog RF
and power supply design.
"A large number of new designs are for communications and
consumer products requiring low-power implementations," said Takashi
Nabuchi, manager, Asaka design center of Toppan Technical Design
Center. "CPF provides the mechanism for communicating low-power intent
that helps us give our customers exactly what they want."
"Low-power design is a significant and growing trend in the
Japan semiconductor market, where an increasing percentage of design
work is targeted to consumer applications," said Pankaj Mayor, group
director of Business Enablement at Cadence Design Systems, Inc. "By
joining the Power Forward Initiative, NSW, DNP and Toppan can bring
additional value to their customer engagements both in terms of
low-power design capabilities, and in support of their customers'
programs to reduce energy consumption. We applaud their leadership."