SAN JOSE, Calif., and HSINCHU, Taiwan, Sept. 20, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Magma Design Automation Inc. (Nasdaq:LAVA), a provider of chip design solutions, and UMC (NYSE:UMC), a leading global semiconductor foundry, today announced a broad physical verification and design for manufacturability (DFM) solution for 65-nanometer (nm) designs. The two companies completed joint qualification of Magma's Quartz(tm) DRC, Quartz LVS and Quartz DFM for UMC's advanced processes and development of foundry-validated runsets and models that support the flow, which is tuned to detect design problems so they are corrected quickly. With the software, runsets and models, designers can accelerate time to market and improve manufacturability of chips targeted for UMC's advanced 65-nm process technology.
Quartz DRC and Quartz LVS are the industry's first fully scalable design rule checking (DRC) and layout-vs.-schematic (LVS) products. Leveraging a unique architecture and advanced modeling capabilities, this revolutionary physical verification solution allows affordable, massively distributed processing. With this technology and the right number of processors, virtually any design can be physically verified in less than two hours. Quartz DFM allows designers to analyze and characterize the timing and power impact due to sources of manufacturing variability, such as lithography and CMP. With this, designers can reduce the guard-banding required by traditional design flows, allowing significant gains in timing and power performance.
"UMC continually works to provide its customers with design and manufacturing solutions that help ensure silicon success. We believe Magma's physical verification software provides significant turnaround time advantages to our mutual customers," said Ken Liou, director of the Design Support division at UMC. "The qualification of Quartz DRC, Quartz LVS and Quartz DFM for our 65-nm process and our ongoing collaboration with Magma demonstrates our commitment to helping our customers address complex system-on-chip design challenges and shorten their time to market."
"IC designers need fast, reliable physical verification to help minimize the cost of developing advanced chips," said John Lee, general manager of Magma's Physical Verification Business Unit. "We pleased to be partnering with UMC to make it easier for more customers to leverage advanced process technologies to meet their most challenging design and schedule requirements."
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.
About UMC
UMC (NYSE:UMC) (TSE:2303) is a leading global semiconductor foundry that manufactures advanced system-on-chip (SoC) designs for applications spanning every major sector of the IC industry. UMC's SoC Solution Foundry strategy is based on the strength of the company's advanced technologies, which include production proven 90nm, 65nm, mixed signal/RFCMOS, and a wide range of specialty technologies. Production is supported through 10 wafer manufacturing facilities that include two advanced 300mm fabs; Fab 12A in Taiwan and Singapore-based Fab 12i are both in volume production for a variety of customer products. The company employs approximately 13,000 people worldwide and has offices in Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Europe, and the United States. UMC can be found on the web at http://www.umc.com.
Magma is a registered trademark and "Design Ahead of the Curve" and Quartz are trademarks 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 about Magma's physical verification software's ability to verify designs in less than two hours; and statements about the features and benefits of Magma's software and UMC's processes 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 UMC's products to produce the desired results, the companies' abilities to keep pace with rapidly changing technology and the companies' decisions to continue working together. 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). The companies undertake no additional obligation to update these forward-looking statements.
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