UMC and Cadence Collaborate to Deliver 28nm Design Reference Flow for Arm Cortex-A7 MPCore-based SoC

SAN JOSE, Calif., Jan. 20, 2015 – 

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CDNS), a leader in global electronic design innovation, today announced that United Microelectronics Corporation (NYSE: UMC; TWSE: 2303) ("UMC"), a leading global semiconductor foundry, used Cadence® implementation and signoff tools to produce a silicon-ready 28nm Arm® Cortex®-A7 MPCore-based system on chip (SoC) targeting entry-level smartphones, tablets, high-end wearables and other advanced mobile devices. With the Cadence solution, UMC reduced the time to tapeout by 33 percent versus its previous solution and achieved performance of 1.7GHz. In addition, UMC achieved a dynamic power consumption of less than 200mW, which represents a 20 percent reduction over their previous flow.

Using the multi-threaded Encounter® Digital Implementation System, which incorporates GigaOpt route-driven optimization along with CCOpt concurrent clock datapath optimization, resulted in faster turnaround time with significantly improved performance, die area and dynamic power. In addition, the seamless integration of Cadence Tempus™ Timing Signoff Solution, Voltus™ IC Power Integrity Solution and Quantus™ QRC Extraction Solution, Physical Verification System, Litho Physical Analyzer and CMP Predictor allowed UMC to perform signoff checks much earlier in the process to affirm that the design functioned as intended upon completion.

"The Cadence massively parallel architecture allowed us to significantly reduce the time spent in signoff analysis, implementation and closure so we could quickly deliver a quality reference design to market that exceeded our power, performance and area expectations," said Shih Chin Lin, senior division director of IP Development and Design Support division at UMC. "Our mobile customers have very specific device requirements, and we've tested the new chip to ensure that they have a reliable 28nm silicon-ready reference design."

About Cadence Design Systems, Inc.

Cadence Design Systems is a leading global EDA company. Cadence customers use our software, hardware, and services to overcome a range of technical and economic hurdles.

Our technologies help customers create mobile devices with longer battery life. Designers of ICs for game consoles and other consumer electronics speed their products to market using our hardware simulators to run software on a virtual chip long before the actual chip exists. We bridge the traditional gap between chip designers and fabrication facilities, so that manufacturing challenges can be addressed early in the design stage. And our custom IC design platform enables designers to harmonize the divergent worlds of analog and digital design to create some of the most advanced mixed-signal system on chip (SoC) designs. These are just a few of the many essential Cadence solutions that drive the success of leading IC and electronic systems companies.

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