October 16, 2000 - National Semiconductor Corporation (NYSE:NSM) today announced the release of WEBENCH® 2.0, an online workbench created to actually give time back to busy design engineers by accelerating design cycles through automated design creation, virtual physical layouts and Web-based simulations. WEBENCH 2.0 continues National's history of innovation and industry leadership for Web-based design services for the engineering community.
WEBENCH 2.0 (WEBENCH.NATIONAL.COM) is a free, interactive collection of online tools that enable a designer to move from component selection to design, analysis and sampling faster than ever before possible. The WEBENCH tools include EasyPLL, a tool for simulating PLL designs, WebSIM™, an enhanced version of the power simulation tool released last fall, and WebTHERM™, a tool used for thermal design and analysis.
The tool set can be accessed from a number of locations on National's Web site, but most frequently, WIRELESS.NATIONAL.COM through two of National's online design communities, WIRELESS.NATIONAL.COM and POWER.NATIONAL.COM. These communities offer designers research, industry news, product information, tutorials, discussion boards, event calendars, and application support for wireless and power.
"National measures its success by helping engineers select the best National device for a design and getting them to market faster than their competition with the best-performing designs," said Phil Gibson, National's vice president of Web business. "Successful customers make National successful, and that is the objective of WEBENCH."
EasyPLL
Accessed through WIRELESS.NATIONAL.COM, EasyPLL is an interactive online simulator for PLL design and analysis. Entering the desired frequencies will generate an electrical circuit including selections for a PLL, Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO), and passive components from a catalog of over 350 devices. The resulting simulations cover PLL and loop filter performance, including phase noise, Bode plots and lock time, enabling complete designs in minutes.
WebSIM
Launched last October in cooperation with Transim Corporation, the updated power design flow now integrates the popular Switchers Made Simple software. The four-step process allows any engineer to build power supply circuits, select from over 2000 components from dozens of vendors, perform online simulations, create physical layouts and develop prototypes in a few hours. At current usage levels, National's customers will save an estimated $50 million this year based on man-hours saved, using POWER.NATIONAL.COM rather than traditional design methods1.
"Using POWER.NATIONAL.COM and WebSIM, I can go from an idea to a working prototype in a few clicks," said Martin Volk, electrical engineer in Motorola's Telecommunications Group. "National has thought of what I need - from a huge catalog of parts to fast simulations."
WebTHERM
The industry's first online thermal simulator, WebTHERM, developed in cooperation with Flomerics Corporation, combines physical layout with thermal modeling to generate full-color thermal images of board designs in minutes.
Accessed through POWER.NATIONAL.COM, WebTHERM produces an incredibly accurate thermal picture by calculating the heat transfer and interaction between components on the board and the environment to generate junction temperatures at the die level as well as the thermal envelope for a design. This sophisticated process allows designers to adjust environmental and air flow parameters while optimizing heat dissipation and electrical performance - capabilities never before possible online.
"WebTHERM is a direct result of our customers' requirements," said Gibson. "When we surveyed our users and asked them what they'd like to see next, the overwhelming response was the need for a tool to simulate the thermal interaction between the components in their designs."
About Flomerics
Flomerics is a world-leading player in the rapidly expanding field of "virtual prototyping," providing software which enables engineers to test virtual models of their equipment on a computer before building physical prototypes. Flomerics' suite of virtual prototyping products dramatically reduces the time required for new product development, at the same time lowering production costs and increasing product quality. Flomerics is headquartered in the UK, and has four offices covering the USA, plus regional offices in Germany, France, Italy and China. ˙Additional company and product information is available on the World Wide Web at www.flomerics.com.
About National Semiconductor
National Semiconductor provides system-on-a-chip solutions for the information age. Combining real-world analog and state-of the-art digital technology, the company's chips lead many sectors of the personal computer, communications, and consumer markets. With headquarters in Santa Clara, California, National reported sales of $2.1 billion for its last fiscal year and has about 10,500 employees worldwide. Additional company and product information is available on the World Wide Web at www.national.com.
1 Cost savings are based on conservative National Semiconductor calculations for WEBENCH usage assuming approximately 20,800 designs completed per year, with an estimated time savings of 43 engineering hours per design.
