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Magma Synthesis Solution Proven with Customer Tapeouts, ASIC Vendor Support, EDA Interoperability and Design Service Providers' Endorsement
More than 300 licenses already in use -- most rapidly adopted
synthesis solution in EDA history ushers in new era
of high-capacity, high-performance synthesis
SANTA CLARA, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Oct. 13, 2003—
Magma(R) Design Automation Inc. (Nasdaq:LAVA), a provider of chip
design solutions, today announced that the company has reached key
milestones in its synthesis roadmap, indicating fast-growing market
acceptance and strengthening the company's position in the IC
implementation market. Since its release in April of this year, more
than 30 new and existing Magma customers have purchased Blast
Create(TM) 4.0 and six designs have already taped out successfully.
Designers are leveraging Blast Create's capabilities on
multimillion-gate, high-speed designs to identify and fix problems
prior to layout, reducing design costs and development cycles.
Broadcom has taped out a 15-million-gate network switching device,
Infrant has taped out a 250 MHz, 3-million-gate network storage design
and Chrontel has taped out a 200 MHz mixed-signal multi-media design
using Magma software. In eight accompanying announcements released
today, Magma details these design successes as well as ASIC, EDA, and
library vendor support and design service provider support for Blast
Create -- the industry's fastest and highest-capacity
RTL-to-placed-gates solution. For more information about Broadcom's
design see http://www.magma-da.com/PRBCBroadcom.html. For more
information about Infrant's design see
http://www.magma-da.com/PRBCInfrant.html. For more information about
Chrontel's design see http://www.magma-da.com/PRBCChrontel.html.
Study Confirms Stability of Magma's RTL-to-GDSII Flow
Howard Landman, well known for his 1997 landmark study of
synthesis tools, recently evaluated Magma's system. In the original
study he repeatedly synthesized several designs using two different
synthesis tools. Each time he synthesized the designs he would
slightly modify the constraints, then comparing the resulting area and
timing. In April of this year he conducted a similar study using
Magma's complete RTL-to-GDSII system.
"In my original study of the traditional synthesis tools, I found
that tiny changes to the design constraints could make the area and
timing results vary quite a lot. There was significant
unpredictability, which created headaches for designers. Although the
tools have improved some in the last 6 years, many designers are still
trying to work around this unpredictability by over-constraining their
synthesis by 10, 15, or even 20 percent or more -- in effect, lying to
the tool to get it to do what they want," said Landman, an ASIC design
consultant and frequent contributor of respected commentary to
synthesis discussion websites. "When I implemented designs using
Magma's integrated RTL-to-GDSII flow, small variations in timing
constraints and the floorplan produced relatively stable
results -- especially in area, which was very smooth over most of the
range of interest. Further, it seemed unnecessary to over-constrain
the Magma tools at all in most cases. The exceptions I saw were for
layouts that were highly congested, where pushing timing by a few
percent was sometimes desirable. Overall, I was favorably impressed
with the stability in the quality of results that Magma's complete
flow offers. It seems to make the dream of correct-by-construction,
one-pass synthesis and layout much closer to reality."
Howard Landman's study of the Magma flow can be found online at:
http://webevents.broadcast.com/cmp/wcs/detail.asp?event_id=5877
"I have 20 years of experience in RTL design, teaching front-end
design and design consulting. I know that poor design decisions made
during synthesis cause major issues in the back end," said Yatin
Trivedi, director of product marketing at Magma. "Magma's unique
approach to synthesis produces superior results because it eliminates
the wasted effort and errors made by conventional synthesis flows. Our
customers consistently get 5 to 15 percent improvements in area,
timing and power -- in one tenth of the time. With over 300 licenses
currently already in use, we believe it is the most rapidly adopted
synthesis solution in EDA history and that this indicates a growing
recognition in the market that wire-load-based synthesis and
point-tool approaches just do not work for today's designs."
Magma Reports Growing Industry Support for Blast Create
Magma is working with various partners to provide mutual customers
with a smooth concept-to-silicon flow.
Silicon Vendors
In production and test designs, Blast Create has demonstrated its
ability to eliminate layout-to-synthesis iterations, streamlining the
handoff between ASIC designers and ASIC vendors. As a result, leading
ASIC vendors are in the process of qualifying it for handoff.
NEC has already qualified the flow and has announced that physical
or placed-gates netlists generated by Blast Create are being accepted
as ASIC handoff. For more information about Magma's work with NEC see
http://www.magma-da.com/PRBCNEC.html.
EDA, Library and IP Vendors
Blast Create is based on the same unified data model as Magma's
physical design solution. This data model is fully accessible through
Tcl and supports industry-standard input and output file formats.
Interoperability with all major EDA tools has already been established
for Magma's physical design tools. Magma is working with key EDA
vendors to ensure interoperability between their tools and Blast
Create. These tools include formal verification, ATPG, BIST, DFT and
RTL debug tools. For more information about Magma's work with
Veritools see http://www.magma-da.com/PRBCVeritools.html.
Blast Create also uses the same libraries as Magma's physical
design solution. Magma's current library and IP vendor partners,
including Artisan and Virage Logic, can support Blast Create with no
additional effort.
Design Service Providers
Qthink, Spike Technologies, Fastrack Design and other design
service providers have been trained on Magma's complete RTL-to-GDSII
design flow. With the adoption of Blast Create, Qthink extends its
expertise using Magma's system to include synthesis. Spike has joined
the MagmaTies program and has started using Blast Create for a large
turnkey design. Fastrack Design is currently using Blast Create for a
4-million-gate design. For more information about Magma's work with
Qthink see http://www.magma-da.com/PRBCQthink.html. For more
information about Magma's work with Spike Technologies see
http://www.magma-da.com/PRBCSpikeTechnologies.html. For more
information about Magma's work with Fastrack Design see
http://www.magma-da.com/PRBCFastrackDesign.html.
About Blast Create
Blast Create is an RTL-to-placed-gates system that enables logic
designers to synthesize, visualize, evaluate and improve the quality
of their RTL code, design constraints, testability requirements and
floorplan. Blast Create integrates fast, full-featured, high-capacity
logic and physical synthesis capabilities, full and incremental static
timing analysis, design for test (DFT) analysis and synthesis, and
power analysis. Unlike conventional point-tool front-end flows, Blast
Create does not rely on wireload models or inaccurate physical design
data. With Blast Create's high capacity and integrated technology,
designers can quickly build and analyze a flat, multimillion-gate
design. This allows them to identify and fix problems early in the
flow, ensuring a clean handoff between the RTL designer and the layout
engineer, providing a predictable path to timing closure and
accelerating the RTL-to-GDSII design flow. Both Verilog and VHDL
hardware definition languages (HDLs) are supported. Blast Create
accepts design constraints in SDC format and libraries in .lib format,
avoiding the need and cost of adapting Blast Create to existing logic
design environments.
About Magma Design Automation
Magma software is used to design fast, multimillion-gate
integrated circuits, providing "The Fastest Path from RTL to
Silicon"(TM), enabling chip designers to reduce the time required to
produce complex ICs. Magma's products for prototyping, synthesis, and
place & route provide a single executable for RTL-to-GDSII chip
design. The company's Blast Create(TM), Blast Fusion(R), Blast Fusion
APX(TM), Blast Plan(TM) and Blast Noise(R) products utilize Magma's
patented FixedTiming(R) methodology and single data model architecture
to reduce the timing-closure iterations often required between the
logic and physical processes in conventional IC design flows. Magma
also provides PALACE(TM) and ArchEvaluator(TM) advanced physical
synthesis and architecture development tools for programmable logic
devices (PLDs).The company's stock trades on Nasdaq under the ticker
symbol LAVA. Visit Magma Design Automation on the Web at
www.magma-da.com.
Magma, Blast Fusion, Blast Noise and FixedTiming are registered
trademarks, and ArchEvaluator, Blast Create, Blast Fusion APX, Blast
Plan, Blast Rail, PALACE and "The Fastest Path from RTL to Silicon"
are trademarks of Magma Design Automation. All other product and
company names are trademarks and registered trademarks of their
respective companies.
FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS:
Except for the historical information contained herein, the
matters set forth in this press release, including statements that
Blast Create users will get 5 to 15 percent improvements in area,
timing and power in one tenth of the time, that leading ASIC vendors
will qualify Blast Create for handoff, that Spike and Fastrack will
complete a design using Blast Create and about the features and
benefits of Magma's system, are forward-looking statements within the
meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities
Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are
subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to
differ materially including, but not limited to, Magma's ability to
keep pace with rapidly changing technology, its product's ability to
produce desired results and Spike's and Fastrack's decisions to
continue using Blast Create. Further discussion of these and other
potential risk factors may be found in Magma's Form 10-K for the year
ended March 31, 2003 and filed with the Securities and Exchange
Commission ("SEC") on June 20, 2003, and from time to time in Magma's
SEC reports. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the
date hereof. Magma disclaims any obligation to update these
forward-looking statements.
Contact:
Magma Design Automation Inc.
Monica Marmie, 408-565-7689
monical@magma-da.com
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