Simplex Delivers First-Silicon Success for Infineon's Titan 19244, World's First Single-Chip 40Gbps Framer-Mapper Device

Simplex's SoC Design Foundry Teams with TSMC on Blockbuster Optical-Networking Chip

SUNNYVALE, Calif., March 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Industry leaders Simplex Solutions, Inc. (Nasdaq: SPLX - news), Infineon Technologies (NYSE: IFX; FSE) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (NYSE: TSM; TSMC) today announced the details of their collaboration that delivered Infineon's recently unveiled Titan 19244, the world's first single-chip 40Gbps framer-mapper device for next-generation optical-networking applications. Simplex's SoC Design Foundry team helped to engineer the physical implementation for Infineon's groundbreaking design, which was fabricated by TSMC. Through the three companies' cooperative efforts, the complex, high-performance optical-networking chip performed to specification on first silicon.

The design for the Titan 19244 was originally developed by Catamaran Communications, which Infineon acquired in April 2001. Catamaran was referred to the Simplex SoC Design Foundry through TSMC's Design Center Alliance (DCA) program, a resource for customers requiring leading-edge design services.

"When we met with Simplex's SoC Design Foundry team, it was obvious that they were the most qualified team to create the physical implementation of our design," said Vijay Mehra, vice president, VLSI engineering at Infineon-Catamaran. "The first-silicon results speak for themselves. The TSMC DCA provided much-needed support for matching us with the strategic partner we needed for this immense task."

Collaboration Details

Simplex's SoC Design Foundry design team employed a hierarchical physical design methodology to deliver first-silicon success for the Titan 19244, the first system-on-chip (SoC) with a data-transfer rate of 10Gbps X 4 / 40Gbps. The chip has more than 50 clock domains, with operating frequencies ranging from approximately 77MHz to 700MHz.

The SoC Design Foundry team, working closely with Infineon's engineering team, achieved timing closure leveraging Simplex's SignalStorm(TM) SoC for hierarchical delay calculation -- resulting in close correlation to SPICE. Voltage (IR) drop analysis, performed with Simplex's VoltageStorm(TM) SoC power-grid verification tool, showed voltage drop well within the parameters of the specification.

TSMC manufactured the chip using its 0.15-micron low-voltage CMOS process technology with eight layers of metal, including a redistribution layer for bumps-to-I/O pad distribution. A custom substrate design, specified by Infineon for a 1,413-pin flip-chip ball-grid array (BGA) package, was used to achieve the chip's target performance and handle the dense high-speed I/O interfaces.

"The mission of TSMC's Design Center Alliance, which now includes 28 partner companies worldwide, is to provide our customers with the quality design support they need to succeed," said Genda Hu, vice president of marketing at TSMC. "Simplex implemented Infineon's design in TSMC's 0.15-micron silicon process with first-pass success, clearly demonstrating the value of TSMC's Design Center Alliance to our customers."

Aurangzeb Khan, Simplex executive vice president and general manager of the company's SoC Design Foundry, noted, "Our mission is to provide our customers with the critical market advantage of first-silicon success for their most complex designs. Working with a 'world's-first' design like the Infineon Titan 19244, presents us with exactly the kind of complex technical challenge that our design methodology was built to address and that our engineers thrive upon. We are very pleased to be able to contribute to the success of this pioneering chip design."

About Infineon

Infineon Technologies AG, Munich, Germany, offers semiconductor and customized solutions for applications in the wired and wireless communications markets, for security systems and smart cards, for the automotive and industrial sectors, as well as memory products. With a global presence, Infineon operates in the US from San Jose, CA, in the Asia-Pacific region from Singapore and in Japan from Tokyo. In the fiscal year 2001 (ending September), the company achieved sales of Euro 5.67 billion with about 38,800 employees worldwide. Infineon is listed on the DAX index of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker symbol: IFX). Further information is available at www.infineon.com

About TSMC

TSMC is the world's largest dedicated semiconductor foundry, providing the industry's leading process technology and the foundry industry's largest portfolio of process-proven library, IP, design tools and reference flows. The company has one advanced 300mm wafer fab in production and one under construction, in addition to seven eight-inch fabs and two six-inch wafer fabs. TSMC also has substantial capacity commitments at two joint ventures fabs (Vanguard and SSMC) and at its wholly-owned subsidiary, WaferTech. In early 2001, TSMC became the first IC manufacturer to announce a 0.10-micron technology alignment program with its customers. TSMC's corporate headquarters are in Hsin-Chu, Taiwan. For more information about TSMC please go to http://www.tsmc.com

About Simplex

Simplex Solutions, Inc. provides software and services for the design and verification of integrated circuits to enable its communications, computer and consumer-products customers to achieve first-time production success and rapid delivery of complex systems-on-chip. Simplex's customers use its products and services prior to manufacture to design and verify the integrated circuits to help ensure that the integrated circuits will perform as intended, taking into account the complex effects of deep-submicron semiconductor physics. Simplex can be reached at (408) 617-6100 or on the web at www.simplex.com