Synopsys Speeds Equivalence Checking by 2X at Nuvoton

Productivity Advantage Over Existing Solution Cited as Main Driver to Standardization on Formality

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Jan. 10, 2011 -- Synopsys, Inc. (Nasdaq: SNPS), a world leader in software and IP for semiconductor design, verification and manufacturing, today announced that Nuvoton Technology Corp (TSE:4919), affiliate of Winbond Electronics Corp, standardized on Formality® equivalence checking to accelerate verification of its Super I/O chips, displacing their existing solution. Using Formality, Nuvoton designers were able to complete equivalence checking out of the box twice as fast, allowing them to meet their challenging design and schedule goals. This success is now driving broad deployment of Formality at Nuvoton.

"Time to market is critical to our business," said Chun-Ming Chang assistant vice president at Nuvoton. "Formality delivered a 2X boost to our equivalence checking process and has helped us meet our critical tapeout schedule. It was easy to learn and use in our DC Ultra™ synthesis flow. We have standardized on Formality for all of our future designs."

Equivalence checking is performed throughout the design process, with failures often requiring multiple iterations that can take weeks to resolve. To accelerate the verification process, Formality is designed to work seamlessly with DC Ultra RTL synthesis, eliminating the need for the user to manually create complex setup files and bear the risk of erroneous verification. In addition, new technology in Formality is designed to analyze each failing point in a design and recommend step-by-step guidance to help the user quickly pinpoint and resolve issues saving many hours of manual debugging. Formality also includes an intuitive flow-based user interface to guide the user through the verification process, improving designer productivity and accelerating the time to successful verification.

"Our customers are required to develop complex chips while reducing design schedules in order to stay competitive in the marketplace," said Ahsan Bootehsaz, vice president of engineering, design analysis and sign-off at Synopsys. "We are committed to developing groundbreaking technologies in Formality that offer customers like Nuvoton the best turn-around-time for their most complex and highly optimized designs."

About Nuvoton

Nuvoton Technology Corp.(TSE:4919), a leading IC company headquartered in Taiwan Hsinchu Science Park, was established in 2008 as a spin-out of Winbond Electronics' Logic business group and IPO in 2010. Nuvoton Technology focuses on the R&D and sales in two main product lines: consumer electronics ICs and computer ICs, and leads in global market shares of speech ICs and computer related application ICs. Nuvoton owns a six-inch wafer fab, featuring in special niche process. Besides in-house IC products, the wafer fab also provides part of its capacity for foundry services. Nuvoton Technology provides high cost performance products for its customers by means of flexible technology innovation capabilities, full product solutions and excellent integration of technology synergy. Nuvoton offers superior services based on existing solid foundation and continues to realize its vision: "Be an indispensable partner to industry leaders." Nuvoton values the long-term relationship with its partners and customers; the company has established subsidiaries in the USA, China and Israel to strengthen regional customer support and global management. Visit Nuvoton online at http://www.nuvoton.com/.

About Synopsys

Synopsys, Inc. (Nasdaq: SNPS) is a world leader in electronic design automation (EDA), supplying the global electronics market with the software, intellectual property (IP) and services used in semiconductor design, verification and manufacturing. Synopsys' comprehensive, integrated portfolio of implementation, verification, IP, manufacturing and field-programmable gate array (FPGA) solutions helps address the key challenges designers and manufacturers face today, such as power and yield management, system-to-silicon verification and time-to-results. These technology-leading solutions help give Synopsys customers a competitive edge in bringing the best products to market quickly while reducing costs and schedule risk. Synopsys is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and has approximately 70 offices located throughout North America, Europe, Japan, Asia and India. Visit Synopsys online at http://www.synopsys.com/.