SAN FRANCISCO, July 14, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- SEMICON West -- Magma(r) Design Automation Inc. (Nasdaq:LAVA), a provider of chip design software, today introduced significant enhancements to Knights YieldManager(r), a customizable yield-management software system for semiconductor fab manufacturers worldwide. The enhancements enable fab yield, defect, test and product engineers to collect, correlate, analyze and share inline metrology, test and fab data. With improvements to the bitmap schema and bitmap loader, YieldManager users can now more accurately and effectively correlate electrical bitmap failures to inline metrology and defect data to increase yields and shorten time to market.
With the introduction of the Enhanced Bitmapping module, YieldManager now provides comprehensive defect bitmap analysis. It collects and stores a larger, richer set of bitmap data measured at different parameters from different testers. It features a powerful new GUI with many new analysis and charting features, including stacked intensity maps that stack the results of many bitmapped dies, and color codes rows and columns failures based upon frequency. These applications and additional new bitmap analysis features make it easier to identify failed bit patterns, separate nuisance and low priority defects from "killer" defects, pinpoint causes of killer defects, and thus increase yields.
"YieldManager saves engineering time and focuses resources by expediting root-cause analysis of failures and eliminating the need to maintain multiple client-server applications throughout the fab," said Ankush Oberai, vice president of Magma's Fab Analysis Business Unit. "With the new bitmap defect analysis capabilities, users can perform more accurate analysis and further improve productivity."
About Magma
Magma's software for designing integrated circuits (ICs) is used to create complex, high-performance chips required in cellular telephones, electronic games, WiFi, MP3 players, DVD/digital video, networking, automotive electronics and other electronic applications. Magma's EDA software for IC implementation, analysis, physical verification, circuit simulation and characterization is recognized as embodying the best in semiconductor technology, enabling the world's top chip companies to "Design Ahead of the Curve"(tm) while reducing design time and costs. Magma is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., with offices around the world. Magma's stock trades on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol LAVA. Visit Magma Design Automation on the Web at www.magma-da.com.
Magma and YieldManager are registered trademarks and "Design Ahead of the Curve" is a trademark of Magma Design Automation Inc. All other product and company names are trademarks or 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 Knights YieldManager improves analysis accuracy, productivity, yield and time to market and about the features and benefits of Magma's software 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 products to produce the desired results and the company's ability to keep pace with rapidly changing technology. Further discussion of these and other potential risk factors may be found in Magma's public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (www.sec.gov). Magma undertakes no additional obligation to update these forward-looking statements.
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