It's a test – which one of the following news items portends the greatest change in the industry?
(see answer below …)

** Per the Press Release: "Cadence Design Systems, Inc. and Verisity Ltd. announced that the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended, relating to Cadence's proposed acquisition of Verisity, expired on Feb. 25, 2005. On Jan. 12, 2005, the two companies signed a definitive agreement under which Cadence agreed to acquire Verisity. The transaction remains subject to approval by Verisity's shareholders and satisfaction or waiver of other closing conditions."

** Synopsys, Inc. announced it has appointed Bill Frerichs as Vice President of Market Research and Strategy. Frerichs will be responsible for competitive analysis, customer and market research and strategic planning. Prior to joining Synopsys, Frerichs was a senior research analyst and the technology team leader at D.A. Davidson & Co. His team published The Tapeout, an investor letter covering EDA, semiconductor IP, semiconductor capital equipment and SoC investments. The team also founded the D.A. Davidson Silicon Technology Conference, an annual event for institutional investors, Frerichs was cited in the Wall Street Journal "Best on the Street" analysts' survey for his coverage of EDA. Prior to joining D.A. Davidson & Co., Mr. Frerichs was analyst team leader at Black & Co., now part of Wells Fargo Securities.

** M2000, based in France, announced it has opened its first North American office in Sunnyvale, CA. Jack Koplik will head the office as Vice President for M2000 North America. Koplik has held several senior sales and marketing positions in the semiconductor industry, and was director of IP business development at memory supplier MoSys Inc. prior to joining M2000. Before that he was with Vweb as managing director of sales for their MPEG video compression chips, and he also held a similar title and responsibilities at Compcore/Zoran IP.

** Tharas Systems, Inc. announced an agreement with First EDA Ltd. to establish a sales & technical support channel in the U.K. and Ireland. Richard Curtin, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at Tharas Systems, is quoted: "With First EDA, we will leverage their extensive technical expertise in verification to deliver the benefits of Hammer to leading edge design teams in the region." Julian Lonsdale, Sales Director of First EDA, is also quoted: "With the best-in-class capabilities of Hammer, our customers can expect to see a significant boost in productivity for pre-silicon validation."

** Cadence Design Systems announced the launch of the Cadence Designer Network, which the company is calling "a global, customer-driven user community designed to promote a greater exchange of technical information and ideas among customers, and between customers and Cadence."

Per the Press Release: " The Board of the International Cadence Usergroup (ICU) has voted to join forces with Cadence to form this new customer community. The Cadence Designer Network will be led by a 22-member steering committee, including 15 customer members. The three executive members of the ICU – Chairman Michael Catrambone of UTStarcom, Co-Chair Sue Strang of IBM, and Communications Officer Steven Klass of National Semiconductor – will retain their respective roles with the new organization. Seven representatives from Cadence – including CTO Ted Vucurevich – will also sit on the steering committee."

"The Cadence Designer Network will provide designers with a variety of ways to connect with other Cadence users to solve problems, to share ideas, best known methods and expertise. Cadence will offer three primary avenues to boost the flow of technical information. Under the direction of a customer-driven steering committee, Cadence will sponsor a series of global technical conferences called CDNLive!, including a major event in Silicon Valley Sept. 12-14, which is being co-sponsored by IEEE Spectrum. It will establish technical advisory teams to gain direct input from customers to help drive product development and technology roadmaps. Finally, beginning later this year it will host a Web-based community for customers."

Mike Fister, Cadence President and CEO, is quoted: "The Cadence Designer Network will provide outstanding opportunities for our customers to strengthen peer-to-peer technical collaboration as well as provide direct access to Cadence experts and executives, benefiting us all. Fostering serious technical exchanges with customers about the challenges facing designers will enable Cadence to incorporate customer feedback directly into our product development process so we can deliver the technologies that design teams need to succeed."

** Mentor Graphics Corp. announced its membership in the ProSTEP iViP Association ECAD Implementor Forum (ECAD-IF), which specializes in the harmonization and specification of ISO STEP data-models and data exchange interfaces (Standard for the Exchange of Product Model Data). Mentor Graphics says its membership in ECAD-IF "lends further weight to the development of common electrical exchange standards in general, and particularly for the automotive industry."

** Omnify Software announced that it has joined the Mentor Graphics OpenDoor partner program. The OpenDoor program consists of companies that offer software products that complement the Mentor Graphics suite of tools in all aspects of the design process. Omnify says its "business-ready PLM solution allows for bi-directional sharing of information between the Omnify database and Mentor Graphics engineering design tools. This interface offers the ability for customers to simplify their component data and library management and enhance their productivity with Mentor's design tools. The integrated solution also eliminates the need for engineering departments to manage separate databases from other groups in an organization."

** Tensilica, Inc., announced that it has joined the EDA Consortium.

Chris Rowen, President and CEO of Tensilica, is quoted: "We are pleased to be joining the EDA Consortium at a time when the electronic design process is starting to go through its next inflection point, up from designing with Verilog or VHDL to designing at higher levels of abstraction to manage both the complexity and time-to-market design issues."

** Brion Technologies, Inc. has announced itself and its technology platforms. The company was founded in 2002 in Santa Clara, CA and aims to develop products and technologies for "lithography-driven IC design and manufacturing." Brion Technologies is a privately held company, with "close" to $30 million in funding from U.S. Venture Partners, Morgenthaler Ventures, Mohr Davidow Ventures, JP Morgan and Stanford University in the U.S.; WK Technology Fund in Taiwan; and JAFCO Ventures in Japan. The company currently has approximately 50 employees.

Per the Press Release: "Brion is currently working with several major customers as development partners to bring to market a full line of products based on this technology for the applications of lithography modeling, RET development, RET qualification, process control and yield enhancement."

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Answer ...

It depends on your view of the world. If it's how companies interface with the industry and the traditional conference venues, it may be the new Cadence Designer Network. If however, you're thinking new technology start-ups have the greatest long-term impact, it may be the news from Brion. Check back in 5 years, when the answer may be more clear.