Magma Enables EE-Solutions to Cut Design Cycle Time Over Cadence Flow

Design Services Team Achieves Timing Closure without Iterations on 1.4-Million-Gate Networking Chip

Magma - January 24, 2002

CUPERTINO, CALIF., January 24, 2002 -- Magma? Design Automation, Inc. (Nasdaq: LAVA), a provider of chip design solutions, announced that the design services team of EE-Solutions of Taiwan has successfully taped out a 1.4 million-gate, 0.18-micron, 133 MHz networking integrated circuit (IC) using the Blast Fusion? physical design system. EE-Solutions achieved timing closure on the design without iterations back through synthesis, going from netlist to GDSII in half the time required by its previous design flow which was based on Cadence Design Systems' Silicon Ensemble.

"Blast Fusion enabled us to achieve timing closure much sooner and reduce the design size while providing a more predictable design cycle," said Dr. Austin Hwang, vice president of engineering for EE-Solutions. As part of the design process, EE-Solutions' customer modified the chip's netlist after a trial design flow, and the time required for the Cadence tool to achieve GDSII after the change was four days longer than initially required. Even with the netlist change, the run time required to reach GDSII with the Magma flow was the same.

"With Cadence's Silicon Ensemble point tool solution, we typically had to go through four to five layout-to-synthesis iterations to achieve timing closure on designs such as this, and we wouldn't know if we had met timing until after layout. Blast Fusion provided reliable timing information early on and maintained that timing throughout the flow. Having validated its capabilities, we plan to take full advantage of this production-quality tool environment and are now targeting several more projects for the Blast Fusion flow."

"With the success of EE-Solutions in Asia Pacific, we now have multiple tape-outs in virtually every significant semiconductor market region," said Roy E. Jewell, Magma president and chief operating officer. "We look forward to continuing to enable EE-Solutions to deliver advanced designs to this important market."

About EE-Solutions

Founded in 1999, EE-Solutions is a leading provider of turnkey ASIC and System-on-a-Chip (SoC) design services to integrated circuit and systems companies worldwide. The company has been recognized for its engineering background, demonstrated experience in overseas delivery, precision in executing concepts, advanced design and research capabilities, and as providing customers with optimal solutions to achieve their business objectives. EE-Solutions also offers effective design methodologies and a wide range of advanced intellectual property and professional personnel to help customers step into the ultra-deep-submicron design field. EE-Solutions is headquartered in Hsinchu City, Taiwan, with branch offices in Taipei, Taiwan and Fremont, California, and has representatives in Shanghai in PRC; in Toronto, Canada; in Seoul, Korea; and in Singapore.

Visit EE-Solutions on the Web at www.e2-solutions.com.tw/english/index.html

About Magma

Magma software products enable chip designers to reduce the time required to design and produce complex integrated circuits in the communications, computing, consumer electronics, networking and semiconductor industries. Magma provides a single executable for RTL-to-GDSII chip design. The company's products, Blast Fusion?, Blast Chip?, Blast Plan? and Blast Noise?, utilize Magma's proprietary FixedTiming? 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 maintains headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., as well as sales and support facilities in Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego, Calif.; Boston, Mass.; Durham, N.C.; Laurys Station, Pa.; Austin and Dallas, Texas; Newcastle, Wash.; and in Germany, Israel, Japan, Korea, The Netherlands, Taiwan and the United Kingdom. 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 and FixedTiming are registered trademarks and Blast Chip, Blast Fusion, Blast Noise and Blast Plan are trademarks of Magma Design Automation. All other product and company names are trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective companies.