Posted: 7th April 2016

University of Oxford Appoints Cadence Vice President of R&D, Dr. Ziyad Hanna, as Visiting Professor

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CDNS) and the University of Oxford today announced a move to foster the advancement of formal verification innovation with the appointment of Dr. Ziyad Hanna, Cadence vice president of R&D, as a visiting professor in Oxford’s Department of Computer Science for the next three years. Through Dr. Hanna’s appointment at Oxford, a globally distinguished university, Cadence further expands its Cadence® Academic Network footprint.

Dr. Hanna brings more than 25 years of industry experience to Oxford. He currently leads the R&D team for the Cadence JasperGold® formal verification platform, having joined from Jasper Design Automation, which was acquired by Cadence in 2014. Before joining Jasper, Dr. Hanna was also a senior principal engineer and a group leader at Intel, working on formal property verification and equivalence checking. A senior IEEE member, he has mentored dozens of research projects, delivered many visionary talks for the industry and academia, and served in more than 50 program committees to advance academic research. Dr. Hanna has co-authored over 30 articles and holds 15 U.S. patents, and he earned both his B.Sc. and M.S. degrees in mathematics and computer science at Tel Aviv University and his D.Phil. from the University of Oxford.

Oxford’s Automated Verification Group, based in the Department of Computer Science, is one of the largest and strongest academic research groups in the field worldwide, and Cadence has one of the largest corporate investments in formal verification and formal equivalence research and development. Through this appointment, Dr. Hanna is using his real-world experience to enhance Oxford’s automated formal verification research program, while also gaining exposure to the university’s practical and industrially oriented research, which is what the Cadence Academic Network works to foster.

‘The University of Oxford appoints visiting professorships to highly distinguished individuals who are regarded as world leaders in their field and can further enhance our research excellence,” said Thomas Melham, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Oxford. “The appointment of Dr. Hanna to Oxford highlights the commitment of Cadence to further the research and development of innovative technology, including formal verification. His visiting professorship provides Cadence with early insight into new academic research directions for addressing the hardest verification challenges that many chip design and system companies encounter.’

‘Oxford’s work in verification spans a wide range of research, from fundamental investigations into model checking to practical, machine-assisted methods applicable to real-world design and verification problems in software and hardware systems,” said Dr. Hanna. “It’s an honor to be working with Oxford’s renowned Department of Computer Science. This appointment enables me to collaborate closely with Oxford’s leading verification researchers to tap into the university’s research, which can drive formal verification innovation and bring talented Oxford graduates to Cadence.’

About Science at the University of Oxford

Oxford is one of the world’s leading universities. Working at the forefront of modern science and technology, Oxford researchers innovate and discover across a broad range of disciplines – from evolution and ecology to seismology; biomedical engineering to materials characterization; geometry to genomics; the foundations of computer science to advanced measurement science; quantum theory to the origins of the universe. More information about Oxford’s leading-edge scientific research is available at www.mpls.ox.ac.uk

About Cadence

Cadence enables global electronic design innovation and plays an essential role in the creation of today’s integrated circuits and electronics. Customers use Cadence software, hardware, IP and services to design and verify advanced semiconductors, consumer electronics, networking and telecommunications equipment, and computer systems. The company is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., with sales offices, design centers and research facilities around the world to serve the global electronics industry. More information about the company, its products and its services is available at www.cadence.com