PDF Solutions Expands Use of Magma's Quartz Products to Physically Verify CV Test Chips for 45-, 40-, 32- and 28-nm Processes

Magma Design Automation, a provider of chip design software, today announced that PDF Solutions, the leading provider of yield improvement technologies and services for the integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing process life cycle, is using Magma's Quartz DRC Physical Verification system in connection with development of Characterization Vehicle® test chips for the 45-, 40-, 32- and 28-nanometer (nm) processes of leading foundries. PDF Solutions expanded its use of the Magma physical verification products to include Quartz DRC and Quartz LVS after successfully verifying a number of CV® test chips for a leading semiconductor manufacturer. Using these physically verified CV test chips, PDF Solutions works with its clients to improve the yield of ICs implemented in these advanced processes.

The Quartz products' proven ability to support complex, leading-edge, deep-submicron process rules, along with the availability of native Quartz runsets made expanding the use of the Quartz products a natural progression, said Howard Read, senior director of Global Field Solutions at PDF Solutions. Timely verification of the test chips using Quartz means our clients can have confidence in their ability to achieve yield goals sooner.

Reducing design and verifications costs is the No. 1 priority for semiconductor companies today, said Anirudh Devgan, general manager of Magma's Custom Design Business Unit. When used as an integral part of PDF Solutions' yield ramp solutions, the faster turnaround time and reduced cost of Quartz DRC and LVS help to accelerate clients' time to market and to improve yield of advanced ICs.

Quartz DRC and Quartz LVS: Fast, Accurate, Fully Scalable Physical Verification

Quartz DRC and Quartz LVS are architected to process integrated circuit (IC) designs of any size, at any technology node, in the least amount of time. Magma's is the first truly scalable physical verification solution, able to provide turnaround time that is up to an order of magnitude faster than existing solutions by leveraging existing compute resources. The Quartz tools are fully compatible with third-party IC implementation flows and can read file formats used by traditional physical verification tools. When combined with Magma's Talus® platform for digital implementation, Quartz DRC and Quartz LVS offer additional time savings by eliminating the need to stream data between the implementation system and the physical verification tool.