COMPASS AND TSMC PARTNER FOR LIBRARY DEVELOPMENT; Leading Foundry and Leading Library Provider Team for Physical Library Development to Ensure Success for Submicron ASIC Customers.

HSINCHU, Taiwan--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 28, 1995--COMPASS Design Automation, Inc., a leader in electronic design automation (EDA) tools and libraries for submicron design, today announced at the Electronic Design Automation and Test (EDA&T) Conference that it has joined with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd. (TSMC) in an agreement aimed at verifying TSMC's foundry process and characterizing physical libraries to ensure first-time silicon success. This agreement expands a long-term relationship between TSMC and COMPASS and further underscores COMPASS' commitment to working closely with silicon vendors to provide the most complete and successful libraries and tools for ASIC customers. The three-year agreement, encompassing proprietary technology exchange and test chips, is the first such agreement in the industry.

"There are approximately 200 fabless IC vendors today, creating a strong demand for customer-owned libraries. Libraries and library development must be closely tied to today's submicron processes," said Gary Smith, principal industry analyst at San Jose, Calif.-based market research firm, Dataquest. "With COMPASS, TSMC has picked one of the most silicon-savvy EDA vendors in the business."

"As the leading supplier of ASIC libraries, COMPASS is able to bring its extensive experience in silicon process technology to help TSMC's customers transition to finer geometries while maintaining first-time silicon success," said Dieter Mezger, president, COMPASS Design Automation. "Working with the world's leading `pure play' foundry, TSMC, our joint efforts will ensure that a broader base of customers have access to `off-the-shelf' libraries so they can meet the most severe time-to-market restrictions."

This extensive partnership includes the following: -0-

    -- Joint development of complete Passport foundry transfer
       packages that are available directly to the customer
    -- Development of test chips and process monitoring with each
       process
    -- Advance notice of design rule changes
    -- Quarterly review meetings between engineering departments at
       COMPASS and TSMC to enable sharing of technical data-0-

The time savings estimated for customers that use the Passport foundry transfer packages are key to this relationship, according to Mezger. Many customers spend up to one year working with each foundry to get the "hand-off" just right. The Passport foundry transfer packages include all of the data necessary to set up the mask-making equipment for a specific foundry. This enables the Passport flow, a methodology by which customers use their own libraries and bring the data to the foundry. Using COMPASS Passport libraries, the foundry transfer packages, together with a CIF or GDSII tape of the customer's design, eliminate the "fumbles" that can get in the way of first-time silicon success. By jointly developing these packages for customers, COMPASS and TSMC provide an additional element to off-the-shelf libraries that meets customers' tight time and budget requirements.

Additionally, COMPASS and TSMC will cooperate in the development and analysis of test chips. Test chips are used to create, tune and validate models for SPICE-to-silicon correlation, and traditionally are developed independently by both foundries and by customers who own their own libraries. By jointly analyzing the test chip data, TSMC and COMPASS can provide accurate model information that ensures successful silicon when using COMPASS' libraries and TSMC's process.

"Clearly, we want our fabless customers who own their own libraries to have an easy and convenient method to submit designs to us for manufacture," said Dr. C. T. Lee, corporate marketing manager at TSMC. "Accurately characterizing library elements all the way down to silicon is key to success for us and our customers. Our relationship with COMPASS will continue to play an important role in our support of fabless semiconductor companies. Indeed, customers using the Passport flow will now have an even greater sense of security in both their foundry and design tools."

COMPASS first introduced its Passport libraries in 1994. Passport libraries are based on a set of physical design rules that are compatible with many of the world's submicron CMOS process technologies and foundries. Customers can choose libraries that are optimized for density or speed; the design rule set has been optimized by COMPASS process experts and its foundry partners. The Passport libraries offer designers an immediate, cost-effective solution for implementation of submicron integrated circuits. COMPASS, the world leader in library development, delivers standard cell and gate array physical and logic libraries to both foundries and customers who purchase their own libraries.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd. (TSMC) is the world leader in the business of manufacturing silicon wafers and packaged parts for customers who design their own products. Currently one of the largest and fastest-growing dedicated semiconductor foundries in the world, the company is well-known for its utilization of leading-edge CMOS process technology, which has become a foundry standard. Current production technologies in use at the company include the 0.5 micron microprocessor, as well as logic, mixed-signal and 0.45 micron advanced SRAMs and DRAMs. TSMC is headquartered in Hsin-chu, Taiwan, and has subsidiaries located throughout the United States and Europe.

COMPASS Design Automation is a leading provider of electronic design automation (EDA) tools and libraries for designing deep submicron application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and application-specific standard products (ASSPs). The company supplies a complete set of tools for silicon implementation as well as front-end design and provides foundry flexible Passport and custom ASIC libraries, memory and datapath compilers, and library development tools. COMPASS is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., and develops, markets and sells its products worldwide. -0-

Note to Editors: Passport is a trademark of COMPASS Design Automation, Inc.

CONTACT: Tsantes & Associates

Michelle Herman, 408/452-8700

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