AT DAC BOOTH #807

CONTACTS:

Magma Design Automation, Inc. Monica Marmie Marketing Communications Manager (408) 864-2027 monical@magma-da.com

Nanette Collins Public Relations for Magma (617) 437-1822 nanette@nvc.com

CUPERTINO, Calif., May 21, 2001 -- Magma Design Automation, Inc., a technology leader in silicon design implementation solutions, today announced that its Blast Chip™ and Blast Fusion™ physical design and implementation systems are now available for the Linux operating system. This move is part of Magma's strategy to deliver comprehensive electronic design automation (EDA) software solutions that meet the requirements of hardware engineers designing complex integrated circuits (ICs) used in communications, computing, consumer electronics, networking and semiconductors products.

Blast Fusion and Blast Chip also run on Sun Microsystems Solaris platform.

"Over the past year we have seen an increasing demand to deliver our products for the Linux O/S," said Bob Smith, Magma's vice president of marketing and business development. "There appears to be a perception in the industry that Linux does not have the capacity or stability to be used for IC physical design. This is simply not the case. We have been using Linux for complete chip designs internally for the past six months. Additionally, one of our key customers has recently completed two chip design projects using our Linux build. In our experience, the Linux environment offers good stability, high-capacity, and good run-time performance for physical design."

Magma's entire line of silicon design implementation solutions will be demonstrated at the 38th Design Automation Conference (DAC) Monday, June 18, through Wednesday, June 20, at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Booth Number 807.

Magma's physical design products shorten the chip design cycle by eliminating the layout-to-synthesis timing closure iterations that often delay project schedules. By providing the design team with up front predictability, timing issues can be addressed early -- before detailed physical design.

Magma's flagship product, Blast Fusion, offers full-chip design and features multimillion gate-count capacity. It performs logic optimization, clock synthesis, power routing, timing analysis, extraction, and place and route. Blast Chip integrates gain-based synthesis technology with Blast Fusion. It is designed to take full chips and large designs from the register transfer level (RTL) through GDSII, allowing partitioning to be based on design or project management requirements rather than on tool capacity limitations. Blast Noise can be added to either Blast Fusion or Blast Chip to perform automatic noise analysis and correction during physical layout.

Pricing and Availability
Blast Fusion and Blast Chip are available now for the Linux platform. Blast Chip licenses start at $371,000 per year. Blast Fusion licenses start at $321,000 per year. Contact Bob Smith for more details. He can be reached via email at bob@magma-da.com or at (408) 864-2020.

About Magma
Magma Design Automation provides design and implementation software that enables chip designers to shorten the time-to-market for complex integrated circuits used in the communications, computing, consumer electronics, networking and semiconductor industries. The company's products, Blast Fusion™ and Blast Chip™, utilize a new methodology for the design of complex multi-million gate chips by combining traditionally separate front-end and back-end design processes into an integrated design flow. This integrated solution reduces timing closure iterations, which accelerates time-to-market for its customers. Magma's proprietary FixedTiming™ methodology and single data model architecture serve as the technical foundation for the Blast Fusion and Blast Chip products. FixedTiming enables Magma's products to optimize for timing performance throughout the flow, predict circuit speed before detailed physical design, and deliver final timing that approximates the predicted circuit speed. The single data model architecture contains and manages the logical and physical data for the chip design, allowing Magma's products to shorten the design cycle and increase the efficiency of the design process. In addition to the design and implementation products, Magma's Blast Noise™ product analyzes and corrects for noise problems that may impact chip performance.

Headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., the company maintains sales and support offices in Silicon Valley, Austin, Boston, Germany, Israel, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the United Kingdom. Corporate headquarters are at 2 Results Way, Cupertino, Calif., 95014. Visit Magma Design Automation on the web at www.magma-da.com.