Magma and TOOL Integrate Quartz DRC, Quartz LVS and LAVIS to Speed Physical Verification and Debugging of Large Nanometer Designs.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. & TOKYO -- Magma[R] Design Automation Inc. (Nasdaq:LAVA), a provider of semiconductor design software, and TOOL Corporation, a leading developer of EDA tools, today announced the integration of Magma's Quartz[TM] DRC and Quartz LVS physical verification solution and TOOL's LAVIS layout visualization platform. Through an easy-to-use GUI these high-performance, high-capacity tools allow users to speed physical verification and debug, accelerating turnaround time and reducing development costs of very large nanometer IC designs.

Quartz DRC and Quartz LVS provide fully scalable physical verification with distributed processing, enabling physical verification of entire multimillion-gate chips in 2 hours. LAVIS, capable of handling very large designs, provides an exceptionally fast visual platform for reviewing verification results. Identified errors can be organized into cell or error type, allowing users to debug them sequentially by viewing them quickly and conveniently on LAVIS. There is no need to wait until DRC jobs complete. Moreover, since LAVIS allows editing a small portion of a large amount of data, users can also fix errors while checking identified errors in the same environment.

"Design complexity increases substantially at 65, 45 and 32 nanometers, and with traditional solutions, physical verification is extremely time consuming at those geometries," said John Lee, general manager of Magma's Physical Verification Business Unit. "Quartz DRC, Quartz LVS and LAVIS share speed and capacity advantages over other solutions, providing mutual customers dramatic acceleration of physical verification, debugging of multimillion-gate designs and significant reduction of turnaround time and costs."

"Adoption of LAVIS, Quartz DRC and Quartz LVS by leading semiconductor vendors is growing rapidly," said Hideaki Hontao, president of TOOL. "We are very pleased to be working with Magma to provide our mutual customers with an integrated, easy-to-use and versatile physical verification and debugging platform."

This solution will be showcased at both companies' booths at the Electronic Design Solution Fair, Jan. 25-26 in Yokohama, Japan.

About Quartz DRC and Quartz LVS

Quartz DRC and Quartz LVS are the industry's first fully scalable physical verification solutions. Leveraging a unique architecture and advanced modeling capabilities, these revolutionary products allow affordable massively distributed processing of DRC and LVS comparison and integrate inherent DFM knowledge into physical verification. With this technology virtually any design can be physically verified in 2 hours.

About LAVIS

LAVIS is a versatile layout visualization platform that supports fast, large data display and multiple file formats. Its fast displaying and memory saving technology dramatically reduce large data load and display time. Various design data, including GDSII and E-beam formats, are supported. Easy integration into other tools allows LAVIS to be used as a "standard layout platform" in a wide range of flows including design, verification, mask data preparation, inspection and failure analysis.

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.

About TOOL

TOOL is a Japanese software development company focused on the EDA sector. TOOL has a proven track record, especially in back-end design phases, of software development symbolized by its LAVIS. TOOL leverages its long and successful experience in both commercial and custom software development to optimize customers' design environments. For more information about TOOL and its products, visit the website at http://www.tool-corp.com.

Magma is a registered trademark and Quartz and "The Fastest Path from RTL to Silicon" are trademarks of Magma Design Automation Inc. All other product and company names are trademarks or 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 Quartz DRC, Quartz LVS and LAVIS speed physical verification and debug, accelerate turnaround time and reduce development costs of very large nanometer IC designs, and about the features and benefits of Magma and TOOL software in general 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 the companies' decision to continue to cooperate, Magma's and TOOL's abilities to keep pace with rapidly changing technology; and the companies' products' abilities to produce desired results. 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). The companies undertake no additional obligation to update these forward-looking statements.