MAGMA TO DELIVER INTEGRATED RTL TO GDSII CHIP IMPLEMENTATION.

Magma Design Automation, Inc., Cupertino, Calif., a technology leader in chip implementation solutions, has revealed phase two of the company's strategy to melt logical and physical design.

Key milestones of the roadmap include the upcoming release of new Silicon Integrity(TM) features for Magma's Blast Fusion(TM) physical design system and the addition of gain-based RTL synthesis technology. With these new capabilities, Magma will be the only electronic design automation (EDA) provider able to offer designers a single register transfer level (RTL) to GDSII chip implementation system based on the FixedTiming(TM) methodology and a unified data model. Magma's tightly integrated system will deliver superior chip performance, significantly reduce both the logical and physical design cycles, handle very large designs and guarantee zero iterations for timing closure for deep submicron (DSM) design.

"In 2000, Magma will take a major step towards realizing its vision of melting logical and physical design together," said Rajeev Madhavan, president and CEO of Magma. "We are leveraging the power of our system architecture that is built around our single, unified data model in order to deliver more capability to our customers. The new products that we deliver this year will enable our users to further reduce time to market while delivering the highest quality of results."

Magma introduced its first product, the Blast Fusion physical design system, in April of 1999. This innovative system delivers better timing performance than any other physical design solution. Based on Magma's patent-pending FixedTiming(TM) methodology, Blast Fusion is the only system that accurately predicts the best timing prior to detailed layout and maintains that timing throughout the physical design flow and, completely eliminates iterations back through synthesis. Key enablers of Blast Fusion's functionality are built-in optimization and layout engines and analysis tools that all operate concurrently on a single, memory-resident data model.

"When we first began working with Magma, we were looking for a next generation physical design system that would drastically reduce our turnaround time as we moved to larger and more complex silicon designs," said Kiminori Fujisaku, general manager of Worldwide System LSI Technologies (WWSLT) of Fujitsu Semiconductor Group. "During an extensive evaluation period we found that Magma's Blast Fusion system was consistently able to implement timing-critical designs without any timing closure iterations. One of our evaluations was based on real designs with the largest in the 3 million gate range, not including embedded macros. As a result of our evaluation, Blast Fusion has become our tool of choice for supporting large, high performance ASIC designs and we are beginning deployment on a worldwide basis. Magma's inclusion of gain-based RTL synthesis will also be of significant benefit to us as it will allow us to shorten turnaround time during the front-end logic design cycle."

Magma's Silicon Integrity technology includes proven enhancements to Magma's FixedTiming methodology that address signal integrity, design reliability, and manufacturability for complex chip design. Unlike conventional logic and physical design solutions, Blast Fusion addresses design issues such as timing closure and signal integrity early in the chip implementation flow. Timing closure is achieved prior to detailed layout and signal integrity effects are managed during layout. In conventional systems, signal integrity, reliability, and manufacturing effects are identified via post-processing analysis. To correct these problems and to achieve their performance goals, designers must perform time-consuming iterations between logical and physical design.

Blast Fusion can more effectively address signal integrity issues because it is the only chip implementation solution with built-in optimization and layout engines and a fully incremental static timing analyzer, parasitic extractor and formal verifier - all of which operate on a single, unified data model. This unique data model architecture allows the tools to communicate in real-time and to work concurrently rather than serially as other tools do. And with a variable width, variable spacing router, Blast Fusion can make on-the-fly routing decisions during layout to ensure the best signal integrity results.

The newest version of the Blast Fusion system which incorporates Silicon Integrity features such as automatic detection and correction of crosstalk, signal electromigration, and antenna rule violations is currently in beta testing with several key customers.

In 1997, the founders of Magma devised a multi-step strategy to address DSM design issues that would result in an entirely new chip implementation solution. To realize their vision, they began concurrent development of synthesis and physical design technology. With the physical design portion successfully completed, Magma now plans to release new gain-based synthesis technology, enabling Magma to provide designers with a single tool for the entire RTL to GDSII flow. Magma's complete chip design implementation solution will perform synthesis, place-and-route and floorplanning. Unlike traditional synthesis solutions, which have a capacity limited to 100K gate designs, Magma's will have the capacity for gate counts in the millions. This increased capacity, plus a unified data model and common tool set will provide the needed consistency and efficiency throughout the flow to realize the best design results for large designs in the shortest amount of time.

With gain-based synthesis, Magma extends the application the patent-pending FixedTiming methodology through the entire chip implementation flow. It will be the first synthesis technology able to begin timing optimization at the RTL level and to use Magma's methodology for determining delay based on gain, rather than absolute parasitic values. Magma has already successfully applied this methodology to physical design, enabling the Blast Fusion system to deliver the best timing for a given netlist without time-consuming iterations. With Magma's RTL to GDSII solution, designers will reduce both the logical and physical design cycle by weeks or months.

"Without our gain-based synthesis solution, our users' results are confined to the capacity limitations and inefficient methodologies of their existing synthesis tools, " said Joe Hutt, vice president of engineering for Magma Design Automation. "By integrating full-chip synthesis with the logic and physical optimization capabilities of Blast Fusion, we will enable our users to get absolutely the best timing from their RTL architecture. And, our system will work on real-world designs that contain millions of gates as well as embedded macro blocks such as memories."

Version 1.2 of the Blast Fusion system, which incorporates Silicon Integrity features will be available in March of 2000 with 3-year time-based licenses starting at $330,600 per year. In 2Q 2000 Magma will release its gain-based synthesis technology as well as additional Silicon Integrity features focused on power integrity. Pricing and product configuration information for these new capabilities will be available at their release.

"Magma is demonstrating its commitment to deliver solutions for current and emerging design challenges," said Bob Smith, vice president of marketing for Magma Design Automation. "We have solved the timing closure problem, and with additional Silicon Integrity features and a single RTL to GDSII tool, we will soon have solutions in place as more designers are faced with very large, complex designs and very short design cycles."

Founded in April 1997, Magma Design Automation develops, manufactures and markets silicon design implementation tools based on Magma's patent-pending FixedTiming(TM) methodology. The company's Blast Fusion system achieves timing closure without iterations back through synthesis, and is the only EDA solution with the MPG(TM) (Magma Performance Guarantee) program. Through this program, Magma offers first-time users a money-back guarantee that Blast Fusion will accurately predict timing prior to detailed layout and will deliver designs with the best possible post-layout timing. To ensure compatibility with existing design environments, Blast Fusion uses industry standard data formats. In addition, Magma has developed the MagmaTies Program to promote cooperation between electronic design automation (EDA) vendors, compatibility among tool offerings, and delivery of solutions to a range of interface, integration, and verification problems for common customers. Headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., the company maintains sales and support offices in Silicon Valley, Austin, Boston, Germany, Israel, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the United Kingdom. Corporate headquarters are at 2 Results Way, Cupertino, Calif., 95014. Visit Magma Design Automation on the web at www.magma-da.com.

For more information, call 408/864-2027.