Memec launched a new subsidiary distributing company, Cascom with an initial capital investment of Β£333 000. Cascom hopes to take a share of the rapidly growing ASIC market, which, according to Dick Skipworth, chairman of Memec, will comprise 25% of the worldwide IC market by the end of this decade. Cascom's approach will be to combine the distributed franchise approach with direct buying from silicon foundries.
One of the major products that Cascom will be distributing is a package of Lattice Logic's Chipsmith and Shapesmith running on Whitechapel Computer Works' 32-bit MG-1 personal workstation. According to Gamil Haddad the managing director of Cascom, he expects to offer the complete package for around Β£20 000 and to sell approximately 100 machines in the first year. David Gravell of Whitechapel said that increase in production to meet demands for the MG-1 would mean that Whitechapel will have to subcontract one of the parts -the PCB, out to another manufacturer. David Eglin of Lattice Logic was also present at Cascom's launch and he described the new method of input available for Chipsmith, it will now accept schematic diagrams as input as well as the MODEL language.
Cascom also plan to offer other packages on the MG-1 including GenRad's HIL02 -a logic and fault simulator and Assisted Technology's CUPL -a programmable logic compiler. It also hopes to open a technical support centre to help customers with their first projects.