Cadence Releases OrCAD 16.6, Boosts PSpice Performance by Up to 20 Percent

SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwire - Sep 25, 2012) - PCB WEST -- Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CDNS), a leader in global electronic design innovation, today launched the Cadence® OrCAD® 16.6 PCB design solution with new features, enhanced customization capabilities, and 20 percent simulation performance improvements that provide customers a shorter, more predictable path to product creation. Additionally, a new signal-integrity flow introduces a higher level of automation that gives usability and productivity benefits for circuit simulation of performance-driven digital circuits requiring pre-layout topology and constraint exploration and development for high-speed design.

OrCAD 16.6 PSpice improves user productivity by providing simulation convergence improvements and an average 20 percent gain in simulation speed. These significant performance gains are achieved through the introduction of multi-core support for simulations involving large designs and designs dominated by complex models such as MOSFETs and BJTs.

"We participated in the early-code beta program for the OrCAD 16.6 release and were very impressed with the improvements for Capture and PSpice," said Hans Jensen, senior engineer at Terma A/S. "The improvements in this new version go a long way toward addressing our design challenges, and we look forward to adopting this new release into our flow at the earliest opportunity."

The expanded/new signal-integrity flow in release 16.6 provides a seamless, bidirectional interface between the OrCAD Capture and the OrCAD PCB SI products. This new integration enables an automated and comprehensive design methodology that streamlines pre-layout topology and constraint exploration improving productivity by 100 percent.

"Engineers will gain significant usability, performance and productivity improvements by leveraging the new capabilities available in the OrCAD 16.6 product line," said Josh Moore, director of product marketing for OrCAD, System and Software Realization Group, Cadence. "This release of the OrCAD products evolves and advances the Cadence mainstream PCB design solutions, so customers are better equipped to address today's challenges in high-speed and mixed-signal design."

OrCAD 16.6 also extends the Tcl programming capability and apps methodology from OrCAD Capture to PSpice. As a result, users can extend and customize their simulations and environment beyond what is possible with a standard 'out-of-box' solution. With Tcl access to the simulation data and environment, users may customize simulations with tolerances on any parameter, map user parameters, or program PSpice with user-defined equations and expressions.

Availability
The Cadence OrCAD 16.6 PCB technology is scheduled to be available in Q4 2012. Users can learn more about the OrCAD product offering at the PCB West 2012 conference and exhibition, September 25-27, in Santa Clara, California, booth #206, or by visiting: www.cadence.com/products/pcb/pages/whatsnew.aspx

About Cadence
Cadence enables global electronic design innovation and plays an essential role in the creation of today's integrated circuits and electronics. Customers use Cadence software, hardware, IP, and services to design and verify advanced semiconductors, consumer electronics, networking and telecommunications equipment, and computer systems. The company is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., with sales offices, design centers, and research facilities around the world to serve the global electronics industry. More information about the company, its products, and services is available at www.cadence.com.

Cadence. OrCAD and the Cadence logo are registered trademarks of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.