We may well be seeing a series of computer-aided design and manufacturing products from Spain following the creation of a new division within the Spanish company Semiconductores SA. The company, part owned by Telefonica subsidiary Compania Espanola de Tecnologia, is planning to develop a collection of computer-aided design products running under Unix, an operating system being used more and more for this type of graphics application in Spain. The new CAD products will centre around applications handling blocks of graphics-related information and also electronic and mechanical design. The new division will also be involved in robotics, enabling integration of more general offerings in the various stages of the production process – from general design, through element definition to actual production. The consequent reduction in the time and expense needed to develop new products should increase the user company’s competitiveness. The third project will be aimed at services companies and will involve the use of telephone technology and viewdata in conjunction with a product called fonotexto. It is a sector that has little competition in Europe, the company believes. To accommodate all these projects, Semiconductores is setting up a unit at an industrial site in Barcelona’s technological park, Valles.
