Magma's Blast Create RTL Synthesis Solution Validated by IBM ASIC; High Capacity and Predictable Timing Closure to Improve Handoff Efficiency
SANTA CLARA, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Jan. 12, 2004—
Magma(R) Design Automation Inc. (Nasdaq:LAVA), a
provider of chip design solutions, today announced that IBM
Microelectronics is accepting design data from Blast Create(TM),
Magma's high-capacity synthesis tool based on the FixedTiming(TM)
methodology, for implementation of ASIC designs. Designs validated by
IBM's ASIC methodology group have shown the handoff from Blast Create
to provide a high degree of correlation with IBM's static timing tool,
Einstimer(TM), a part of IBM's physical design system, Chip Bench.
"We qualified Magma's Blast Create by accepting multiple test
cases synthesized by Magma, and successfully transferred them into our
ASIC design system," said Maurice Kinney, synthesis methodology
engineer at the IBM Technology Group. "This provides our customers
additional synthesis tool choices for implementing ASIC designs."
"Blast Create's gain-based synthesis and FixedTiming methodology,
combined with its very high capacity and fast turnaround time, improve
quality of results (QoR) in complex SoCs -- area, performance and
power improve by 5 percent to 15 percent," said Nitin Deo, vice
president of product marketing for Magma. "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 too many blocks to be integrated
at the top level -- making chip-level timing convergence unpredictable
-- and it causes many layout-to-synthesis iterations.
"IBM's qualification of Blast Create is the latest sign of
increasing adoption of Magma's synthesis as a production-proven
technology. This ongoing shift in ASIC design will reduce overall
development time for ASIC designers."
Blast Create offers all aspects of front-end design: RTL
synthesis, datapath synthesis, physical synthesis, DFT analysis and
scan insertion, static timing analysis and Tcl-based scripting
environment. Both popular hardware definition languages (HDLs),
Verilog and VHDL, are supported. Blast Create accepts design
constraints in SDC format and libraries in .lib format, avoiding the
need for and cost of adapting Blast Create to existing logic design
environments.
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.
Magma is a registered trademark and "The Fastest Path from RTL to
Silicon" is a trademark of Magma Design Automation Inc. 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 IBM
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, improve area, performance and
power and eliminate iterations, 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, IBM's continuing decision to
accept ASIC design data from Blast Create, Magma's ability to keep
pace with rapidly changing technology and its products' abilities to
produce desired results. 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.
Contact:
Magma Design Automation Inc.
Monica Marmie, 408-565-7689
monical@magma-da.com
