Matsushita Uses Magma's Blast Fusion for Deep Submicron Asic Designs.

Business/Technology Editors

CUPERTINO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 10, 2001

Under a Long-Term Agreement, Matsushita to Integrate Magma's

Netlist-to-GDSII Design System Into Its Next-Generation Complex Chip

Design Flow

Magma Design Automation, Inc., a provider of chip design solutions, announced today that Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. of Japan, under a multi-year licensing agreement, used the Blast Fusion(TM) physical design system on a trial basis to complete several designs. Matsushita found that Blast Fusion was able to reach timing closure, eliminate iterations between synthesis and layout, and add predictability to every phase of the design flow. The completed designs include million-gate ASICs and ASSPs, all targeting high-volume communications and consumer applications.

"Time to market is critical to our communications and consumer electronics business," said Shinya Tokunaga, design manager of Matsushita's Advanced LSI Development Center. "We began looking at new methodologies to help us take full advantage of our 0.18-micron and 0.15-micron process technologies. We believe that Magma provides the advanced chip implementation technology we need for our next-generation designs."

"We've received very good results and impressive technical support from Magma," Mr. Tokunaga added. "We implemented and achieved timing closure on a multimillion-gate chip design using Blast Fusion and verified success based on tough process corner requirements. The joint Magma and Matsushita technical teams also validated target extraction and delay calculation accuracy. We will continue working with Magma to enhance their tools to support the unique needs of our designs for high-volume communications and consumer applications."

"Matsushita is a leader in its field and at the forefront of technological advancement," said Seiji Miwa, president of Magma Japan. "We are delighted to work with Matsushita and look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship."

About Magma

Magma provides design and implementation software that enables chip designers to reduce the time it takes to design and produce complex integrated circuits used in the communications, computing, consumer electronics, networking and semiconductor industries. Its products, Blast Fusion(TM) and Blast Chip(TM), utilize a new methodology for the design of complex multimillion-gate chips by combining traditionally separate front-end and back-end design processes into an integrated design flow. This integrated solution reduces timing closure iterations, which accelerates time-to-market for its customers. Magma's proprietary FixedTiming(TM) methodology and single data model architecture serve as the technical foundation for the Blast Fusion and Blast Chip products. FixedTiming enables Magma's products to optimize for timing performance throughout the flow, predict circuit speed before detailed physical design, and deliver final timing that approximates the predicted circuit speed. The single data model architecture contains and manages the logical and physical data for the chip design, allowing Magma's products to shorten the design cycle and increase the efficiency of the design process. In addition to the design and implementation products, its Blast Noise(TM) product analyzes and corrects integrated circuits for noise problems that may impact chip performance.

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.

FixedTiming and Magma are registered trademarks and Blast Chip, Blast Fusion and Blast Noise are trademarks of Magma Design Automation. All other product and company names are trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective companies.