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Calma Company, based in Sunnyvale, California, was, between 1965 and 1988, a vendor of digitizers and minicomputer-based graphics systems targeted at the cartographic and electronic, mechanical and architectural design markets. In the electronic area, the company's best known products were GDS (an abbreviation for "Graphic Data System"), introduced in 1971, and GDS II, introduced in 1978. By the end of the 1970s, Calma systems were installed in virtually every major semiconductor manufacturing company. The external format of the GDS II database, known as GDS II Stream Format, became a ''de facto'' standard for the interchange of IC mask information. The use of this format persisted into the 21st century, long after the demise of the GDS II computer system. In the integrated circuit industry jargon of 2008, "GDS II" referred no longer to the computer system, but to the format itself. Vendors of electronic design automation software often use the phrase "from RTL to GDSII" to imply that their system will take users from a high-level logic design to a completed integrated circuit layout ready for delivery to the mask vendor. In the mechanical area, the DDM (for "Design Drafting and Manufacturing") product was introduced in 1977. It was later extended, under the name "Dimension III", to address the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) market. By 1983, these two products together accounted for 60% of Calma's revenue. () Dimension III continued to be used as late as the late 1990s. () == History == Calma Company was incorporated in California on November 13, 1963. Its initial business was as a product distributor, continuing the business of a previously existing partnership of the same name. () The company took its name from its founders, Calvin and Irma Louise Hefte. In 1965 Calma introduced the Calma Digitizer, a device consisting of a table-like surface with constrained cursor, whereby an operator could enter coordinate data from a paper drawing and have it turned into computer readable form. In about 1969, the company undertook to develop a minicomputer-based graphics system built around a digitizer. This effort was spurred by the arrival of Josef Sukonick, a recent MIT math PhD who had become aware of the market potential for such a system for integrated circuit (IC) design through his work at the CAD (computer-aided design) group of Fairchild Semiconductor in Sunnyvale, CA. The GDS software system was conceived and, in its initial implementation, almost single-handedly built by Dr. Sukonick. The first GDS system was shipped in late 1971 to Intel. The growth of sales of GDS paralleled that of the nascent integrated circuit industry. By August 1976 there were 121 GDS systems installed at 70 companies including many Fortune 500 corporations including Motorola, International Telephone & Telegraph, Fairchild Semiconductor, and others. Of these, 43 were installed outside the U.S. () In 1978, Calma, which never had a public stock offering, was acquired by United Telecommunications, Inc., (UTI) of Kansas City, Missouri, for $17 million in stock. Calma became part of UTI's United Computing Systems (UCS) operating unit. UTI took a hands-off approach to managing its acquisition, allowing Calma to continue largely unchanged on its growth path. In 1978, Calma introduced GDS II (pronounced "G-D-S two"), a modernized replacement for GDS. With its 32-bit database, GDS II met the need for greater capacity and resolution in IC designs. GDS II quickly replaced GDS as the data entry system of choice for many IC design groups. By late 1980, there were 171 installed GDS II systems. () In December 1980, the sale of Calma by UTI to General Electric (GE) was announced. The sale price was $110 million, with an additional $60 million contingent on Calma's profits over the next five years. The acquisition was completed in April 1981. () GE had grander designs for Calma than had UTI. In addition to the hope of maintaining dominance in the IC market, GE aimed for Calma to expand in the architectural, engineering, manufacturing and construction markets – "factory of the future" was a prominent buzzword. Due partly to excessive expectations, partly to the changing nature of the market and the inherent difficulty of keeping up with rapidly changing technology, these ambitions went largely unrealized. Beginning in 1988, GE sold Calma. The electronic side of the business was sold to Valid Logic Systems in April 1988. (Valid in turn was acquired by Cadence Design Systems in 1991). The remainder of the business (mechanical/architectural) was acquired by Prime Computer in a sale completed in January 1989. () Prime had just completed a hostile take-over of Computervision. Prime basically merged the Calma Mechanical and AEC product lines with Computervision. Computervision, including the Dimension III product, was acquired by Parametric Technology Corporation in 1998. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Calma」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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