Magma Enables ClearSpeed to Deliver World's Highest Performance, Low-Power Floating-Point Chip; Built-In Timing, Power and Signal Integrity Analysis Engines Used for Signoff
SANTA CLARA, Calif. & LOS GATOS, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Dec. 16, 2003—
Magma(R) Design Automation Inc. (Nasdaq:LAVA), a
provider of chip design solutions, announced today that ClearSpeed
Technology achieved first-pass silicon success on the CS301
floating-point chip using Blast Fusion(R) APX, Blast Noise(R) and
Blast Rail(TM). The 40-million-transistor, 0.13-micron CS301 is the
highest performance floating-point chip in the world, performing 25
billion floating-point operations a second. ClearSpeed adopted Magma's
integrated IC implementation flow after ClearSpeed's traditional
point-tool flow failed to complete routing, achieve timing closure,
meet low-power requirements or maintain signal integrity. With Magma's
integrated approach, ClearSpeed was able to meet their design
requirements and tape out the design in less than three months.
Analysis of the design results showed tight correlation to
industry-standard timing, noise and power sign-off tools.
"The CS301 is an extremely complex device with stringent power
requirements," said Russell David, vice president of engineering at
ClearSpeed. "The Magma system provided a correct-by-construction
approach to power, signal integrity and physical design. Its tight
integration and unified data model gave us great visibility into the
design. We could understand the decisions the system was making so
when we got an unexpected result we could quickly identify what we
could do better to eliminate the problem. In just three months we were
able to deliver a design with incredible performance and stunningly
low power."
"The point-tool flow we had been using was completely
unpredictable and gave us no insight into what was preventing us from
achieving design closure," David added. "When we tried to fix one
problem, we would introduce others."
"Point-tool flows just cannot address the challenges of
0.13-micron and below," said Alan Runcie, vice president of European
Operations at Magma. "ClearSpeed's ability to deliver this large,
complex device using our software demonstrates the advantages of
Magma's integrated approach. ClearSpeed's confidence in the accuracy
of our system is further illustrated by their use of Magma's embedded
analysis engines as sign off for timing, power and signal integrity."
Integrated System and FixedTiming Methodology Deliver Lower Power
and Reduce Area
Magma's IC implementation system is based on the patented
FixedTiming(TM) methodology, an approach that enables Magma's system
to predict circuit speeds prior to detailed physical design. The
system then uses a series of design refinements during the place and
route process to achieve a final timing that is very close to the
predicted circuit speed. With predictable timing results, iterations
can be eliminated and time to market can be significantly improved.
FixedTiming also ensures that each cell is sized according to the
actual wireload, resulting in lower cell counts and more compact
layouts.
"Magma's system produced much better placement so there was a
significant reduction in wire length," David said. "That contributed
significantly to helping us minimize the power consumption of the
CS301."
Built-In Timing, Power and Signal Integrity Analysis Engines Used
for Sign-off
Magma provides sign-off quality timing analysis and signal and
power integrity design capabilities within a single environment. This
eliminates the need for separate sign-off tools and further reduces
turnaround time.
Using a standalone timing analysis tool, ClearSpeed was unable to
identify and fix timing problems during implementation. After
implementing the design using Magma's system, they compared the
results with those of a transistor-level timing analysis tool and
found that they were comparable. As a result, ClearSpeed now uses
Magma's built-in timer for sign-off.
Blast Rail and Blast Noise were also critical in minimizing power
and increasing performance of the CS301. Both work concurrently with
Blast Fusion throughout the implementation flow. Blast Noise
automatically analyzes and adjusts the chip design to avoid crosstalk
noise, crosstalk delay and signal electromigration (EM) problems.
Blast Rail provides automated power analysis and planning,
voltage-drop analysis, voltage-drop-induced delay analysis, and
electromigration analysis on rail wires and vias. By automatically
addressing signal integrity and power problems during physical design,
Blast Noise and Blast Rail eliminate the need for cumbersome
post-layout analysis and repair, and ensure working silicon.
Because the design was at 0.13 micron, ClearSpeed anticipated
signal integrity problems, but Blast Noise automatically avoided
signal integrity violations. ClearSpeed used Blast Noise's accurate AC
noise characterization to quickly identify false violations that would
otherwise be reported if using only DC noise margins only. This
prevented ClearSpeed from wasting time trying to fix paths that were
not a problem. In addition, ClearSpeed found that the Blast Noise and
Blast Rail results correlated well with their transistor-level tools.
The results were later validated in silicon.
About ClearSpeed
ClearSpeed Technology is a semiconductor company focused on
delivering high-performance, low-power, parallel processing solutions
for the computing and communications industries. ClearSpeed's advanced
multi-threaded array processor technology provides its customers with
the ability to significantly accelerate data-intensive applications at
extremely low power. Privately funded, ClearSpeed has offices in the
USA and UK and already has over 40 patents granted and in process.
Visit ClearSpeed at www.clearspeed.com.
About Magma
Magma provides leading software for designing highly complex
integrated circuits while maximizing Quality of Results with respect
to area, timing and power, and at the same time reducing overall
design cycles and costs. Magma provides a complete RTL-to-GDSII design
flow that includes prototyping, synthesis, place & route, and signal
and power integrity chip design capabilities in a single executable,
offering "The Fastest Path from RTL to Silicon"(TM). Magma's software
also includes products for advanced physical synthesis and
architecture development tools for programmable logic devices (PLDs);
capacitance extraction; and characterization and modeling. The
company's stock trades on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol LAVA. Visit
Magma Design Automation on the Web at www.magma-da.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
Except for the historical information contained herein, the
matters set forth in this press release, including statements about
the features and benefits of Magma's software, about its ability to
deliver results that correlate to industry-standard signoff tools,
that it eliminates the need for separate signoff tools and about the
features and benefits of ClearSpeed's IC 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 the ability of Magma's and ClearSpeed's products to produce
the desired results and Magma's and ClearSpeed's abilities to keep
pace with rapidly changing technology. Further discussion of these and
other potential risk factors may be found in the parties' latest
filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission on form 10-K, and
any subsequent updates thereto on form 10-Q. These forward-looking
statements speak only as of the date hereof. The parties disclaim any
obligation to update these forward-looking statements.
Magma, Blast Fusion, Blast Noise and FixedTiming are registered
trademarks and Blast Rail and "The Fastest Path from RTL to Silicon"
are trademarks of Magma Design Automation Inc. All other product and
company names are trademarks and registered trademarks of their
respective companies.
Contact:
Magma Design Automation Inc.
Monica Marmie, 408-565-7689
monical@magma-da.com
or
Lutchansky Communications (for Clearspeed)
Scott Smith, 650-328-5555 ext. 144
ssmith@nealemay.com
