MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., and HSINCHU, Taiwan, May 3, 2004 - Synopsys, Inc. (Nasdaq:SNPS), the world leader in semiconductor design software, and UMC (NYSE: UMC; TSE: 2303), a world-leading semiconductor foundry, today announced that the two companies have collaborated to develop a reference design flow based on Synopsys' GalaxyTM Design Platform and UMC's 0.13 micron process. To validate the effectiveness of the reference design flow, Synopsys' Advanced Technology Group designed and taped out a test chip tailored to UMC's 0.13 micron process to study signal integrity and inductance effects as well as the multi-threshold voltage power optimization design technique. The successful development of the test chip helps demonstrate the effectiveness of the Galaxy Design Platform in handling the intricate design rules inherent in deep submicron system-on-chip (SoC) design.
"As process technologies and SoC designs become increasingly complex, UMC continues to expand our design support capabilities to help customers increase their chance of first silicon success," said Ken Liou, director of the Design Support division at UMC. "Working with an industry leader like Synopsys gives UMC and its customers access to a validated reference flow that reduces risk and speeds time to market. This collaboration helps ensure that the performance and capabilities of the Galaxy Design Platform can work smoothly in a UMC process flow."
The Galaxy Design Platform is an open, integrated design implementation platform, enabling advanced semiconductor design. Anchored by Synopsys' industry-leading semiconductor implementation tools and the open MilkywayTM database, the Galaxy Design Platform incorporates consistent timing, common libraries, delay calculation, constraints, testability, and physical verification from RTL all the way to silicon.
"Synopsys works with world-class foundries like UMC to solve our mutual customers' timing closure, and verification challenges, "said Rich Goldman, vice president of Strategic Market Development at Synopsys. "This collaboration is important to help ensure that Synopsys' Galaxy Design Platform offers UMC customers a complete, reliable RTL-to-GDSII design flow. We will continue to work with UMC to address future challenges of even deeper submicron processes."
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