LEADER IN ANALOG SIMULATION MICROSIM ENTERS NEW MARKET INTRODUCES MICROSIM
PCB DESIGN SOFTWARE

February 24, 1995 -- IRVINE, Calif. -- MicroSim Corporation today announced
expansion into the printed circuit board (PCB) design market with the
introduction of two high-end, easy-to-learn software packages priced up to
90 percent less than the competition, MicroSim PCBoards for Windows and
MicroSim PCBoards with Autorouter for Windows.

"The industry is very familiar with PSpice, our flagship simulation
product, but this is the first time MicroSim has introduced a PCB design
package," said Wolfram Blume, MicroSim president. "We needed to do
something to make an impact on the marketplace, so we're launching our new
PCB products at prices 60 to 90 percent less than other PCB layout
products on the market today."

MicroSim PCBoards carries an introductory price tag of $1,079 ($1,400
internationally), regularly priced at $2,995 ($3,900 internationally).
MicroSim PCBoards with Autorouter is being introduced at $1,958 ($2,550
internationally), with a regular price of $4,950 ($6,450
internationally).

According to Blume, the products are functionally equivalent to the
high-end PC-based circuit board layout packages from PADS and P-CAD. "In
essence, we're using a low introductory price as a strategy to convince
potential customers to buy our product," he said.

With the introduction of MicroSim PCBoards and MicroSim PCBoards with
Autorouter, the company now offers a full line of tightly integrated
Windows products ranging from schematic entry to PCB design to mixed A/D
simulation to signal integrity analysis. Both new PCB design packages
support 32-bit Microsoft Windows 3.1 and Windows NT environments.

MicroSim developed the high-end PCB design packages from scratch and is
able to sell them at a low introductory price without sacrificing
functionality. One way other vendors reduce the price of a PCB product is
to limit the number of devices on the board that a software package can
handle, as well as the number of pin connections and layers. Yet MicroSim
designed its two new products to manage an unrestricted number of
components and pins, with unlimited board size, and up to 64 layers.

The MicroSim software also allows the designer to make global changes over
an entire PCB board, including changes in layers and footprint anytime
during the layout process. Most other packages require the user to decide
the size, shape and number of layers on the board in advance. MicroSim's
software permits engineers to change these fundamentals at any time.

The flexibility to make fundamental changes anytime, ease of use and short
learning curve make MicroSim PCboards ideal for organizations where design
and layout are merging into one function. Engineers are able to
incrementally design and do "what if" changes. Users can start to lay out
parts and later decide on the layers, or pass them on to a PCB designer.

The new PCB packages have gone through an array of internal tests and beta
tests to fine-tune their efficiency and make the packages "bullet proof."

"Like all of our products, we made reliability and robustness a goal from
the start," said Peter Sundquist, vice president of marketing and sales.
"To guarantee that we deliver the highest quality of software possible,
MicroSim will provide one year of annual maintenance free during the
introductory period."

Other features developed by MicroSim to help the PCB designer include:

* Greater efficiency than other packages because common actions
  require fewer keystrokes and mouse clicks
* Exceptionally good manual trace editing with orthogonal and
  orthogonal 45 degree manual routing with snap to pin
* Easy-to-use integrated package editing for footprints, pin-outs,
  gate-swaps and spin swaps
* Large libraries -- over 32,000 components and over 950 footprints
* Fast whole board DRC calculations
* On-line and batch DRC
* Flexible design constraints such as independent clearance
  specifications on any object in the layout including individual
  segments and vias
* Copper creation follows design rules for any objects encountered
* Gerber RS-274D and RS-274X with embedded aperture information
* Full Undo and Redo functions so edits can be backed out and restored
  step-by-step
* Sub-micron resolution
* Very easy-to-use integrated footprint editor with semi-automatic
  placement and numbering
* Push and shove, rip-up and retry autorouter
* Graphic trace editing with rubber-banding and automatic-connect
  for pasted traces
* Board designs of any size, complexity or speed are verifiable
  before production
* Any rotation angle, no restrictions
* Powerful rules-driven layout for designed-in quality
* Rules can be stated in MicroSim Schematics and other schematic
  editor packages
* Integrated with MicroSim Polaris for signal integrity and analysis
* Cooper and Chyan Technology's SPECCTRA autorouter can be invoked
  and controlled from the PCBoards Windows environment.
* Greater efficiency than other packages so designs can be created
  in a fraction of the time
* OrCAD translator for symbol libraries and schematics
* No limit on -- hierarchy levels, zoom, pages per schematic
  and schematics per design
* No security plug

The MicroSim product family also tightly integrates schematic capture
(MicroSim Schematics), signal integrity analysis (MicroSim Polaris),
circuit simulation (MicroSim PSpice or MicroSim PSpice A/D), logic
simulation (MicroSim PLogic), programmable logic synthesis (MicroSim
PLSyn), and analog performance optimization (MicroSim PSpice Optimizer).

The new MicroSim PCBoards and MicroSim PCBoards with Autorouter will be
available in the second quarter of 1995. MicroSim will exhibit the PCB
packages for the first time at the MicroSim booth, #805, from March 21 to
23 at the PCB Design Conference in Santa Clara, Calif.

MicroSim products are available for Microsoft Windows, Windows NT, DOS, Sun
and HP. MicroSim breaks from the norm and keeps prices affordable by
selling high-quality, shrink-wrapped software directly to customers in the
United States instead of relying on an expensive sales force. MicroSim
applications engineers provide same-day-response technical support via
phone, fax, Internet and BBS.

More information on the MicroSim family of products is available by phone
at (714) 770-3022 and (800) 245-3022, or via fax at (714) 455-0554, or on
Internet at sales@microsim.com.

MicroSim Corp
20 Fairbanks
Irvine, CA 92718
714-770-3022,  800-245-3022,  fax 714-455-0554,  BBS 714-830-1550

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