NewsFormer Lineage Systems Rolls Out First of New CAST Design Data Management Products

Design Publisher and Object Control System Improve Design Efficiency for IP Developers and Users

June 21, 1999, Design Automation Conference, New Orleans, Louisiana -- Intellectual property (IP) and design data management provider CAST, Inc. today announced the shipping of two new tools that help electronic product designers control and exchange IP and design information:

• Design Publisher makes schematics portable by translating them from proprietary formats to the industry-standard Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF).
• Object Control System (OCS) provides a complete, inexpensive, entry-level system for organizing and maintaining the IP components used throughout a design project.

These tools are the first design data management products for long-time IP provider CAST. They derive from development work done by the former Lineage Systems, Inc., which recently merged with CAST.

"These tools are practical, affordable solutions for engineers working in the real world," said Hal Barbour, president of CAST. "Otis Elevator, for example, is using Design Publisher to provide PDF versions of elevator schematic wiring diagrams to field installation and service groups, while other customers are using OCS to simply and intelligently manage their IP."

About Design Publisher

Design Publisher intelligently generates universally-readable PDF files for designs created with the popular schematic editors. The universal format promotes design reuse within and between companies, and it helps integrate the front end of the design process with product data management (PDM) and other functions typically occurring downstream in the process.

"Design reuse fails to happen partly because it’s too hard to keep old designs available on-line," said Steve Mills, vice president of design data management for CAST. "Make it quick and easy to communicate design details -- like Design Publisher does -- and you’ll soon see IP blocks start to get reused while increasing design understanding at the back end of the process."

Design Publisher is shipping today with initial support for Viewlogic ViewDraw schematics and the Sun Solaris operating system. Support for Windows-NT and other platforms will follow shortly.

About OCS

The Object Control System addresses the challenge of keeping design information organized and the development process flowing smoothly.

Advanced systems like Viewlogic’s DxDM help designers manage the many pieces of information required for a development project, including schematics, symbols, models, cores, and all their related files. Many smaller design shops, however, find these systems too expensive, with an overkill of features and complexity.

OCS is a design data management solution aimed at these smaller, local installations. It leverages a proven freeware source code control engine to provide a powerful yet cost-effective system for performing revision control on IP components throughout the design process. Easily acquired and integrated with any design environment, OCS helps individual designers or small teams work in a more-organized, more efficient manner. It also provides a straightforward upgrade path, helping teams shift to systems like Viewlogic’s DxDM when they are ready.

OCS for the Sun Solaris OS is shipping now. Support for other Unix platforms as well as Windows-NT will follow in the next few months.

About CAST, Inc

CAST offers IP and design data management products backed by consulting, training, and custom development services. The company is headquartered near New York City at:

11 Stonewall Court, Woodcliff Lake, NJ 07675
Phone: 201-391-8300 Fax: 201-391-8694
E-mail: info@cast-inc Web: www.cast-inc.com

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