Magma Design Automation Joins Si2’s Design for Manufacturability Coalition

OpenDFM Specification Close to Release

AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Silicon Integration Initiative (Si2) announced today that Magma® Design Automation (Nasdaq: LAVA), a provider of chip design software, is the latest member of Si2’s Design for Manufacturability Coalition (DFMC). Magma joins other key players in the semiconductor supply chain, including Cadence Design Systems, IBM Corporation, Intel Corporation, Mentor Graphics, STARC, Synopsys, Tela Innovations and Texas Instruments, as DFMC members.

“With increasing design rule complexity and number of rules at 65 nm and below, physical verification can become a bottleneck in the delivery schedule”

On August 10 DFMC members unanimously approved a 60-day Intellectual Property review period for the first official release of the specification for OpenDFM, a high-level DRC language that can be translated into a variety of proprietary verification languages with no loss of accuracy or performance. OpenDFM, scheduled for release later this year with rapid adoption expected by all major EDA vendors, silicon foundries, and end-user companies, describes the patterns for physical verification at a higher level than traditional DRC rules and recent tests indicate it has the potential to reduce the volume of DRC rules by 10X-20X.

The next release of OpenDFM will add rules for Lithography, Chemical Mechanical Planarization and Critical Area Analysis. OpenDFM provides a compact notation for the description of the patterns of physical verification rules that include conditional rules and ranges of acceptable values.

DFMC’s charter is to specify open standards for software interfaces between EDA software tools and manufacturing software. The specification includes standard terminology definitions, semantics and exchange formats for relevant manufacturing information. It also includes standard software application program interfaces (API) for models describing different manufacturing processes, yield mechanisms and circuit behaviors.

“The DFMC is producing important work for the industry and we are pleased to have all major EDA vendors united in this important effort,” said Steve Schulz, president and chief executive officer of Si2. “Each member company has committed to work together and to produce an inclusive approach to involve all stakeholders to create an industry-wide solution.”

By joining DFMC, Magma continues to support the industry-wide initiative toward developing a common runset language. “With increasing design rule complexity and number of rules at 65 nm and below, physical verification can become a bottleneck in the delivery schedule,” said Anirudh Devgan, general manager of Magma’s Custom Design Business Unit. “Our collaboration with other members of the DFMC to define the specification and ensure interoperability of Quartz™ DRC and Quartz LVS with OpenDFM demonstrates our commitment to providing designers with faster physical verification flows.”

Membership in the DFMC is open to all interested parties across the semiconductor supply chain. For more information, see: http://www.si2.org/?page=491.

About Magma

Magma’s electronic design automation (EDA) software provides the “Fastest Path to Silicon”™ and enables the world’s top chip companies to create high-performance integrated circuits (ICs) for cellular telephones, electronic games, WiFi, MP3 players, digital video, networking and other electronic applications. Magma products are used in IC implementation, analog/mixed-signal design, analysis, physical verification, circuit simulation and characterization. The company maintains headquarters in San Jose, Calif., and offices throughout North America, Europe, Japan, Asia and India. Magma’s stock trades on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol LAVA. Follow Magma on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/MagmaEDA and on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/Magma. Visit Magma Design Automation on the Web at www.magma-da.com.

About Si2

Si2 is the largest organization of industry-leading semiconductor, systems, EDA and manufacturing companies focused on the development and adoption of standards to improve the way integrated circuits are designed and manufactured, in order to speed time-to market, reduce costs, and meet the challenges of sub-micron design. Now in its 22nd year, Si2 is uniquely positioned to enable timely collaboration through dedicated staff and a strong implementation focus driven by its member companies. Si2 represents nearly 100 companies involved in all parts of the silicon supply chain throughout the world. See www.si2.org.

Magma is a registered trademark and “Fastest Path to Silicon” and Quartz are trademarks of Magma Design Automation Inc. All other product, company and institution names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Forward-looking Statements:

Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters set forth in this press release, including statements about the features and benefits of Magma products, 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 ability of Magma’s products to produce the desired results and the company’s ability to keep pace with rapidly changing technology. 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 company undertakes no additional obligation to update these forward-looking statements.