Blaze DFM Strengthens Ties with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- Blaze DFM, Inc. today announced that it has strengthened its relationship with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to include TSMC support for Blaze MO(TM) optimization software. The two companies have developed Blaze MO design kits and are working together to make this technology available for evaluation.

This announcement builds on the previously announced agreement for Blaze to join the TSMC DFM Compliance Initiative. "We started working with Blaze at a very early stage," said Ed Wan, TSMC senior director of Design Service Marketing. "With Blaze MO, we see a good potential to reduce leakage and manufacturing variability."

The two companies have agreed to work together to enable and evaluate Blaze MO usage by TSMC customers. Blaze MO is the first electrical design for manufacturability product from Blaze DFM. It uses information about design intent (such as timing constraints) to drive a manufacturing-aware optimization of integrated circuit designs for reduced leakage power and variability. "Working with TSMC is clearly an ideal situation for Blaze," said Jacob Jacobsson, Blaze CEO. "We are honored by the time and energy that TSMC has put into this project."

Working in conjunction with Blaze engineers, TSMC has developed 90nm and 65nm design kits for Blaze. These design kits include pre-qualified CD bias ranges, OPC directives and GDSII layer specifications for the TSMC-supported method of GDSII annotation. The TSMC Blaze enablement project also included the incorporation of Blaze MO annotations into the TSMC RET and mask data preparation flow. "We worked diligently with TSMC to qualify the electrical and lithography impact of Blaze CD biasing decisions on the TSMC process," said Andrew Kahng, co-founder, CTO, and Chairman of Blaze DFM, Inc. "The design kits we have developed provide everything a customer needs from TSMC to add Blaze MO into their design flow."

About Blaze MO

Blaze MO equips chip designers with the ability to get the most out of 90nm and below process technologies. With Blaze MO, designers drive their power and performance requirements into the manufacturing flow, effectively "turbo charging" the manufacturing process. Blaze enhanced designs are faster, less leaky and have better parametric yield.

About Blaze DFM

Blaze DFM provides software solutions to fabless semiconductor companies, integrated device manufacturers and silicon foundries. Our products give IC designers greater control over manufacturing variability, improving yield and shortening time to volume production. Blaze DFM, Inc., 1275 Orleans Drive, Sunnyvale, CA 94089, 408-470-4900, http://www.blaze-dfm.com.