NEC Electronics America to Accept ASIC Handoff from Magma RTL Synthesis; Completed Designs Demonstrate Smoother Transfer of Data and More Predictable Timing Closure

SANTA CLARA, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Oct. 13, 2003— Magma(R) Design Automation Inc. (Nasdaq:LAVA) and NEC Electronics America today announced that NEC Electronics America will accept ASIC design data from Blast Create(TM), Magma's high-capacity synthesis solution. Designs completed for NEC Electronics America's ASIC customers have shown the hand-off from Magma provides a smooth data transfer and predictable timing closure without the need to iterate from layout back to synthesis.

"We have seen a 3-million-gate design handed off from Blast Create, and it progressed smoothly through physical implementation," said John Fallin, general manager of the Design Solutions Center at NEC Electronics America. "Transfer of data was in a self-contained Volcano form, which provided an easy interface between our customer and our design center. Blast Create uses the same libraries and constraints that we use for physical implementation with Blast Fusion. This eliminates any issue with consistency and correlation of data between what the ASIC customer is using and what our design center uses."

Conventional approaches to logic design require partitioning and delay budgeting of the design into blocks with fewer than 250,000 gates. For today's 10-million-gate and larger SoC designs, this requires many blocks to be integrated at the top level, making chip-level timing convergence unpredictable and causing layout-to-synthesis iterations. Blast Create's capacity, which is an order of magnitude greater than that of conventional synthesis tools, gives front-end designers the same advantages that back-end designers have enjoyed -- improvements in area, performance and power of 5 percent to 15 percent.

"We are excited that NEC Electronics America's design centers will accept hand-off from Blast Create," said Yatin Trivedi, director of product marketing at Magma. "I believe it is a sign of the maturing and wider acceptance of Magma's synthesis as a production-proven technology. This could result in a significant shift in ASIC design methodology that would benefit both logic designers and physical designers by improving their interaction and reducing overall development time."

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.

About NEC Electronics America, Inc.

NEC Electronics America, Inc., headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., is a wholly owned subsidiary of NEC Electronics Corporation (TSE:6723), a leading provider of semiconductor products encompassing advanced technology solutions for the broadband and communications markets; system solutions for the mobile, PC, automotive and digital consumer markets; and platform solutions for a wide range of customer applications. NEC Electronics America offers solutions ranging from standard products to system-on-a-chip (SoC) solutions, customized products for next-generation designs, a local manufacturing facility in Roseville, Calif., and the global manufacturing capabilities of its parent company. NEC Electronics America is also the North American sales and marketing channel of NEC AM-LCD and PDP modules. More information about the products offered by NEC Electronics America, Inc. can be found at http://www.necelam.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 NEC will accept ASIC design data from Blast Create, that the use of Blast Create will improve the interaction between logic and physical designers, reduce development time, and result in better power, area, and performance, 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, NEC's continuing decision to accept ASIC design data from Blast Create, Magma's ability to keep pace with rapidly changing technology and its products ability to produce desired results. 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.

Magma Design Automation Inc.
Monica Marmie, 408-565-7689
monical@magma-da.com
  or
NEC Electronics America, Inc.
Denise Garibaldi, 408-588-6620
denise_garibaldi@necelam.com