Cadence Design Systems Inc. also is expected to climb aboard by providing ways of importing QuickData EDA symbols and footprint information to its tools. CAD-ready data can be searched over the Internet and pulled directly into schematics. Besides Lucent, companies like Agilent Technologies, IBM and Hewlett-Packard are reportedly developing their own carrots and sticks to make sure their suppliers start QuickData library programs. At DAC this past week, ChipData demonstrated technology called iData Miner that's intended to convert PDF-format data sheets to the XML format that QuickData is based on. Meanwhile, Saqqara is working with Lucent on a customized internal browser that would let board designers search for QuickData parts that match selected criteria.
Cadence offers XML-based PCB library tool.
By Michael Santarini. Kim Singer, product marketing manager for Cadence PCB Systems Division, said to date most IC makers have not readily supplied documentation on their ICs and, if they do, it has largely been inconsistent from company to company, making the job of EDA librarians difficult. Cadence also wants the data to be consistent so that its recent Internet spin-off, SpinCircuit, can quickly build and easily maintain large component libraries in a single format and efficiently supply those to design and system houses. By Richard Goering. The company will also offer a free EdaXML viewer, and free syntax and semantic checkers, via the World Wide Web.