Mellanox Tapes Out 4-Million-Gate, High-Performance Communications Design in Four Days with Magma's Blast Create and Blast Fusion; Integrated Flow Delivers Cost Savings Through Reduced Area and Increased Designer Productivity.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Magma(R) Design Automation Inc. (Nasdaq:LAVA), a provider of semiconductor design software, today announced that Mellanox, a leading provider of industry-standard, InfiniBand-based silicon and card-based solutions, has successfully taped out a 4-million-gate, high-performance, flip-chip device in just four days using Blast Create(TM), Blast Fusion(R), Blast Rail(TM) and Blast Noise(R). With Magma's integrated RTL-to-GDSII flow and a small design team Mellanox was able to significantly reduce the area of the device and achieve noise and power sign-off without additional point tools, resulting in significant production and manufacturing cost savings. E[acute accent]"The Magma flow delivered a higher-capacity, more predictable and accelerated design cycle than our previous flow," said Evelyn Landman, principal engineer at Mellanox. "We were able to implement four key components of this next-generation device in a single, flat block, eliminating unnecessary hierarchy and minimizing the routing channel and ultimately the overall area. The ESP (Early Silicon Performance) timing reports generated by Blast Create allowed us to quickly identify and correct problems on critical paths and improve our timing constraints, helping us avoid time-consuming iterations and quickly develop high-quality RTL. With Magma we were able to tape out this chip faster and with a smaller design team." E[acute accent]"Mellanox provides cost-effective, high-performance interconnect solutions to leading server and storage vendors," said Premal Buch, general manager of Magma's Design Implementation Business Unit. "We're pleased that they have leveraged Magma's RTL-to-GDSII flow to further reduce the cost of their chip development while improving performance."

E[acute accent]Integrated Flow Increases Productivity, Accelerates Turnaround Time 

E[acute accent]Based on a unified data model architecture and advanced technology, Magma's RTL-to-GDSII flow concurrently optimizes for timing, area, power, signal integrity and yield, eliminates data format translation or file transfers between front-end and back-end tools, and minimizes iterations. This powerful solution enables users to increase productivity and accelerate turnaround time. E[acute accent]Blast Create and Blast Fusion are key components of the Magma flow. Blast Create is a next-generation front-end solution that enables logic designers to synthesize, visualize, evaluate and improve the quality of their RTL code, design constraints, testability requirements, floorplan and placement. With Early Silicon Performance (ESP) reports generated by Blast Create, designers can quickly and accurately predict how their RTL and constraint changes will affect timing. Blast Fusion is a fast physical design system for advanced methodologies and nanometer process technologies. It provides advanced analysis and optimization capabilities for designing high-performance, low-power designs. Blast Fusion enables rapid design closure, taking into account new nanometer design challenges such as on-chip variation (OCV). Blast Noise and Blast Rail work concurrently with Blast Fusion to maintain signal and power integrity. With proven-accurate results, Blast Noise and Blast Rail can be used for noise and power sign-off.

E[acute accent]About Mellanox

E[acute accent]Mellanox's field-proven offering of interconnect solutions for communications, storage and compute clustering are changing the shape of both business and technical computing. As the leader of industry-standard, InfiniBand-based silicon and card-based solutions, Mellanox is the driving force behind the most cost-effective, highest-performance interconnect solutions available. For more information, visit www.mellanox.com.

E[acute accent]About Magma

E[acute accent]Magma is a leading provider of software for semiconductor design. The world's top chip companies use Magma's EDA products to design and verify complex, high-performance integrated circuits (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. The company's stock trades on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol LAVA. Visit Magma Design Automation on the Web at www.magma-da.com.

E[acute accent]Blast Fusion, Blast Noise and Magma and are registered trademarks, and Blast Create, Blast Rail 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.

E[acute accent]Forward-Looking Statements:

E[acute accent]Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters set forth in this press release, including statements that Magma software reduces area and development costs and achieves noise and power sign-off without additional point tools, and generally about the performance of Magma software 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 its 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). Magma undertakes no additional obligation to update these forward-looking statements.