Faraday Adopts Magma's FineSim SPICE Circuit Simulator.

Cuts Simulation Time to Less Than 24 Hours - Competitive Simulator Took 26 Days

SANTA CLARA, Calif. & HSINCHU, Taiwan -- Magma[R] Design Automation Inc. (Nasdaq:LAVA), a provider of semiconductor design software, announced today that Faraday Technology Corporation (TSE:3035), a leading ASIC and silicon IP provider, has selected Magma's FineSim SPICE circuit simulator as the simulator of choice for its high-performance designs after it displayed better accuracy and faster runtime than a number of popular commercial circuit simulation products - cutting simulation time to less than 24 hours on designs that required 26 days to simulate with a widely used competitive simulator.

"We have been using seven different circuit simulators, but we needed a higher-performance transistor-level SPICE circuit simulator for our newest PLL chips, which operate at high frequencies," said Jim Wang, director of Faraday's IRDC (Infrastructure Research Development Center). "By using FineSim SPICE for our 10/100/1000 Ethernet controller, 10/100 fast Ethernet PHY cores, and GHz PLL IPs for UMC's 90-nm processes, we were able to increase the frequency yet maintain low jitter rates. We expect to standardize on FineSim SPICE for much of our circuit simulation."

PLL (Phase-Locked Loop) designs, widely used in consumer electronics applications such as cellular telephones and satellite televisions, require a low jitter rate, the variance between two signals' phases.

"Our goal is to achieve first-cut design success, which ultimately shortens the time to market," Wang said. "FineSim SPICE's accuracy and the fast runtime delivered by its distributed processing helped us complete very advanced designs more quickly - our previous simulator took 26 days, whereas FineSim SPICE took less than 24 hours for the same design."

"Our primary focus is to improve design productivity, and FineSim SPICE is targeted at delivering better accuracy faster," said Suk Lee, general manager of Magma's Custom Design Business Unit. "With FineSim SPICE, designers can simulate very high-performance chips that would have been impractical to simulate with traditional products."

FineSim SPICE is a SPICE-level simulation analysis tool that incorporates transistor-level simulation analysis capabilities for mixed digital and analog designs. FineSim SPICE contains a full SPICE simulation engine with distributed processing that enables customers to simulate large-scale mixed-signal system chips at the transistor level. By providing increased speed and capacity while maintaining full SPICE accuracy, FineSim SPICE enables designers to simulate advanced circuits - such as PLLs, ADCs (analog-to-digital converters), DACs (digital-to-analog converters) and gigahertz SERDES (SERializer/DESerializer) - that they previously would not even attempt using slower traditional SPICE simulators.

About Faraday Technology Corporation

Faraday Technology Corporation is a leading silicon IP and fabless ASIC vendor. The company's broad SIP portfolio includes 32-bit RISC CPUs, DSPs, MPEG-4, H.264, PHYs/Controllers for USB 2.0, 10/100 Ethernet, Serial ATA, PCI Express, Cell Library and Memory Compiler. With more than 650 employees and 2005 revenue of US$175 million, Faraday is one of the largest fabless ASIC companies in the Asia-Pacific region, and it also has a significant presence in other worldwide markets. Headquartered in Taiwan, Faraday has service and support offices around the world, including the U.S., Japan, Europe and China. For more information, please visit www.faraday-tech.com.

About Magma

Magma's software for integrated circuit (IC) design is recognized as embodying the best in semiconductor technology. The world's top chip companies use Magma's EDA software to design and verify complex, high-performance ICs for communications, computing, consumer electronics and networking applications, while at the same time reducing design time and costs. Magma provides software for IC implementation, analysis, physical verification, characterization and programmable logic design, and the company's integrated RTL-to-GDSII design flow offers "The Fastest Path from RTL to Silicon"[TM]. Magma is headquartered in Santa Clara, 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 is a registered trademark, and FineSim SPICE and "The Fastest Path from RTL to Silicon" are trademarks of Magma Design Automation Inc. All other product and company names are trademarks and 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 FineSim SPICE provides better accuracy and faster runtime than circuit simulation products, improves productivity and shortens turnaround time and that Faraday will use FineSim SPICE for high-performance designs 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 Magma's ability to keep pace with rapidly changing technology and the company's products' abilities to produce desired results and Faraday's decision to continue using FineSim SPICE. 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.