SpringSoft's Laker Custom IC Layout and Digital Routing Tools Gain Momentum in Memory Chip Market

Eon is latest memory chip maker to adopt the Laker Custom Digital Router for fast, more efficient design of NOR Flash products

HSINCHU, Taiwan, April 11, 2011 — SpringSoft, Inc. (TAIEX: 2473), a global supplier of specialized IC design software, today announced that its Laker™ Custom Layout Automation System with the Laker Custom Digital Router continues to penetrate the memory chip market and demonstrate success at implementing the high performance, low power requirements of current and next-generation designs. The company also revealed that Eon Silicon Solution Inc. (‘Eon’) joins the growing list of leading memory chip companies that are adopting Laker tools to realize significant productivity gains in the design of memory solutions for a broad range of industries and advanced applications.  Eon has experienced a 3X increase in layout speed with the Laker solutions.

“More large, global chip makers are now relying on Laker to implement memory solutions optimized for power and quality, including chips for mobile and high performance systems,” said JeongTyng Li, vice president, Physical Design and Technology Product Group, at SpringSoft. “This expansion into the memory chip marketplace is in large part due to Laker’s custom digital routing technologies, which provide the specialized automation and focus on design excellence that enables companies to meet aggressive product goals while saving valuable design time.”

Laker Adoption by Memory Chip Market

Eon is a fabless semiconductor company focused on non-volatile semiconductor memory and the most recent memory chip provider to go public about its use of SpringSoft’s Laker custom layout and digital routing tools. As one of the top ten flash providers in the world, Eon offers the broadest range of NOR Flash memory for computing, communication, consumer, and industrial markets and applications, including 5V, 3V, 1.8V product lines in Parallel (ISA) and Serial (SPI) Flash from 512Kbit to 512Mbit densities.

 “In order to achieve customer satisfaction for our products and services, we are committed to continuous improvement of quality. This includes providing our designers with best-in-class tools and new, more advanced technologies as they become available,” said Hsiao-Hua Lu, director of RD at Eon. “Like Eon, SpringSoft is also committed to continuous improvement of its Laker products. As a long-time satisfied user of Laker layout tools for flash memory design, we are especially pleased by the seamless integration and major productivity and ease of use benefits of Laker’s new custom digital router.“

Among the growing list of companies also using Laker tools for memory chip design are Hynix Semiconductor Inc. and Winbond Electronics Corporation. Based in Korea, Hynix is the world’s top tier memory semiconductor supplier of Dynamic Random Access Memory (“DRAMs”), Flash memory ("NAND Flash"), and CMOS Image Sensor ("CIS") chips. Winbond, a leading global supplier of semiconductor memory solutions headquartered in Taiwan, has deployed Laker layout and routing systems for a variety of mobile memory applications, such as SDR, low power DDR, and cellular RAM.  Winbond’s Specialty DRAM, Mobile RAM, NOR Flash and Graphic DRAM products are widely used today by leaders in the consumer, communication, computer peripheral and automobile markets. (For more details, see separate announcements about Hynix and Winbond use of Laker tools.)

Laker Custom Digital Routing for Memory Chips

Introduced in March 2010, the Laker Custom Digital Router is a hybrid router with both gridded and shape-based routing technologies tuned for mixed-signal and custom digital designs. This unique combination supports memory-specific routing styles such as backbone and secondary spine routing for very high completion rates. The custom digital router is fully compatible with Laker layout tools, enabling layout engineers to work within a single, highly automated custom IC environment that addresses the changing nature of memory chip design with smaller physical geometries, increased performance needs, and low-power constraints. Engineers can learn more information about using the Laker router for memory chip design by visiting the SpringSoft web site at www.springsoft.com/products/custom-design-and-layout/digital-router.

SpringSoft’s Laker custom IC design solutions offer the power of controllable automation and unmatched interoperability to achieve superior layout results with less effort for analog, mixed-signal, and custom digital designs. More than 300 companies, including many of the world’s leading semiconductor companies, have adopted the Laker layout system for designs down to 28 nanometers.  For more information about Laker products, visit: http://www.springsoft.com/products.

About SpringSoft

SpringSoft, Inc. is a global supplier of specialized automation technologies that accelerate engineers during the design, verification and debug of complex digital, analog and mixed-signal ICs, ASICs, microprocessors, and SoCs. Its award-winning product portfolio features the Laker Custom IC Design and Novas Verification Enhancement solutions used by more than 400 of today's leading IDM and fabless semiconductor companies, foundries, and electronic systems OEMs. Headquartered in Hsinchu, Taiwan, SpringSoft is the largest company in Asia specializing in IC design software and a recognized industry leader in customer service with more than 400 employees located in multiple R&D sites and local support offices around the world. For more information, visit www.springsoft.com.