Zuken donates £75,000 of CADSTAR PCB design software to Imperial College to mark 15,000th license

June 2002, Zuken, the PCB design and chip-packaging EDA specialist, has donated £75,000 worth of its CADSTAR PC-based software to Imperial College, London, to mark the company's 15,000th license for the product. The software will be made available to all of the college's undergraduates and research students in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. The Department has 633 undergraduates of which half are from overseas. There are also 150 postgraduate students, 75% of whom are from overseas. The college conducts basic and applied research in electrical and electronic engineering to provide a sound theoretical foundation for engineering analysis and design methodologies that underpin existing and emerging electrical engineering technologies.

Dr. Mike Lee, a Research Fellow and Industrial Liaison Officer for Imperial College said:
"This is a very generous donation by Zuken. At present, students use a variety of less sophisticated design tools that don't enable them to fully explore the latest technologies and design techniques. By taking CADSTAR on board as the college's standard printed circuit design solution we will be able to keep our students up-to-date with technology and enable them to work more closely together through sharing common systems."

Peter Cheung, Deputy Head of the Department of Electrical and Electronic engineering added:
"We are offered many generous donations by technology companies but have to be selective in those we accept to ensure that such donations are put to good use. We had no hesitation in accepting the CADSTAR package from Zuken as I am confident that the software will be used extensively by students and will benefit them greatly in their work."

On behalf of Zuken, Head of CR5000 and CADSTAR Business Unit, Mark Thompson, said:
"The electronics industry needs more PCB designers and we recognise the need to both develop the UK skills base and to extend the understanding of CADSTAR's capabilities to overseas markets. Imperial College is one of the leading educational establishments in electrical and electronic engineering with an international reputation, so we are delighted to be able make this donation to them as part of our ongoing commitment to the industry as a whole."

Earlier this year Zuken became the first EDA software vendor to sign up to the Printed Circuit Board (PCB) Design Scheme, represented by the Federation of the Electronics Industry (FEI), and part of a £2.8 million programme jointly funded by the DTI and industry. The aim of the scheme is to increase the numbers of printed circuit designers and to enhance their skills.

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Note to editors:

Zuken is one of the world's leading providers of professional software solutions for the design of PCB/MCM/IC packages and systems. These advanced tool sets facilitate schematic capture, placement, routing and analysis, and manufacture and test. Used by the world's top 30 electronic product manufacturers, the solutions operate under both UNIX and Microsoft Windows. Zuken is the market sector leader in Japan and has offices throughout Europe and the USA. It is a global organisation employing over 1000 people and the company is listed on Level 1 of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
For more information, visit http://www.zuken.com.