Magma expands RTL to GDSII Technology Development efforts

Berkshire, United Kingdom, April 5, 2000 -- Magma Design Automation, Inc. today announced it has founded a research and development (R&D) center at the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven (TUE), also known as the Eindhoven University of Technology. Magma has hired two TUE professors to head up the operation, chartering them with developing next-generation logical and physical design technology focused on accelerating time-to-market for complex integrated circuits (IC). The new team's first priorities are to work with Magma's US-based R&D organization to complete enhancements of Magma's gain-based synthesis and Silicon Integrity[tm] technology.

"Our strategy in creating a European R&D center is to take advantage of the close proximity to many of the top communications and semiconductor companies, and to leverage the considerable knowledge-base of TUE," explains Rajeev Madhavan, president and CEO of Magma. "This new R&D team will be better able to interface with European industry leaders toensure rapid development of design software solutions that address the emerging design and time-to-market challenges faced by these fast-growing markets."

The European center will eventually house a significant part of Magma's total R&D staff which currently includes 38 dedicated engineers, 20 of which hold Ph.Ds. The first members of Magma's European R&D staff are Michel Berkelaar, Ph.D. and Koen van Eijk, Ph.D., both formerly professors in the Design Automation Section of the Electrical Engineering Department at TUE. Berkelaar brings to the team expertise in optimizing area, power, and delay during logic synthesis. Verification and simulation have been the focus for van Eijk, who has published several papers on these topics. Widely recognized as one of the best engineering education and research institutions in the world, TUE will provide Magma's R&D team access to additional expertise and will provide offices and infrastructure, allowing the team to begin work immediately.

"We're very excited that Michel and Koen have agreed to join Magma's R&D staff," noted Joe Hutt, vice president of engineering at Magma. "Each brings an excellent educational background and unique skills that will be extremely valuable to Magma as we continue to enhance our RTL to GDSII design implementation system."

ABOUT MAGMA DESIGN AUTOMATION

Founded in April 1997, Magma Design Automation develops, manufactures and markets silicon design implementation systems based on Magma's patent-pending FixedTiming[tm] methodology. The company's Blast Fusion system achieves timing closure without iterations back through synthesis, and is the only EDA solution guaranteed to accurately predict timing prior to detailed layout and delivers designs with the best possible post-layout timing. Magma's customer list includes 3Dlabs, Fujitsu Semiconductor Group, Sun, Texas Instruments and Real Chip.

To ensure compatibility with existing design environments and emerging design tools, Magma offers the MagmaTies Program. The goals of the MagmaTies Program are cooperation between EDA vendors, compatibility among tool offerings, and delivery of solutions to a range of interface, integration, and verification problems for common customers.

Headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., the company maintains sales and support offices in Silicon Valley, Austin, Boston, Germany, Israel, Japan 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.

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