Solution-Soft Releases gdzipTM Version 2.0

Santa Clara, Calif., May 12, 2003 – Solution-Soft Systems, Inc., a leading provider of Intelligent Data Optimization (IDO) solutions, today announced the general release of gdzipTM 2.0, a specialized file compressor for the GDSII file format.  The GDSII stream is the standard exchange format between the design world and the mask shops.  This latest release achieves compression ratios 2-to-15 times more than any other available solution, a 30 percent improvement over version one.  Additionally, time to compress has been reduced, on average, by 10 percent.       

GDSII is one of the most prevalent file types used by semiconductor companies in the creation of chip designs.   Year after year the number of functions embedded in a typical semiconductor has expanded.  This has likewise resulted in an expansion of the design files used to create the chips, with many designs in the Gigabyte (GB) range.   The addition of Optical Proximity Correction (OPC) further expands the resulting file size. 

As a chip design progresses it passes through many hands and across a multitude of systems on its way to final production.  Initially it may begin at the workstation of an engineer in a fabless design house then be sent to, or accessed by, other engineers internally as they complete the final design.   When the software-based design has successfully passed significant internal processes the chip design house will send the files for the design to a mask shop or chip foundry to begin the process of making the physical semiconductor chip.  In the industry this process is called “Tape-Out”, a legacy term carried over from the days when the files had to be written to magnetic tape and physically sent via courier to the mask shop or foundry.  Today, practically every semiconductor company uses the Internet to accomplish this task to help meet their time-to-market demands.

Solution-Soft’s gdzip significantly reduces transfer time and storage requirements for GDSII files

In between all these steps, gdzip reduces the time delay of getting the files where they need to be.  The tremendous size of GDSII files alone can cause problems when transferring to another site.  Users can experience long-delays as well as line failures during the transfer.  Reducing the size of the files with gdzip frees the tape-out engineer from the tedious task of monitoring the transfer for an excessively long time as well as limiting the possibility of connection failures with the shortened transfer cycle.  Long term, gdzip provides a significant savings in storage by diminishing the size of each version of every design that companies will archive.  

“Solution-Soft’s customers are very pleased with the performance level we’ve been able to achieve in this latest version of gdzip.” said Paul Wang, CTO at Solution-Soft.  “Our install base covers nearly every one of the worlds largest chip foundries and mask shops, many chip design houses as well as some EDA and EB writer vendors who interface with gdzip through our API to access compressed files at run time while leaving the files compressed on disk.  This release allows all of them to realize even greater transportability and storability of designs.”

About Solution-Soft      

Solution-Soft is the leading provider of Intelligent Data Optimization (IDO) solutions, which address the urgent need for automated management of data in complex networking environments.  IDO solutions facilitate automated data selection, movement and redirection that optimize high availability, storage scalability and system performance.  The company has developed robust data and information life-cycle management software solutions for corporate data centers and storage system vendors.  Solution-Soft boasts more than 1,500 customers, including 3M, AT&T, Boeing, Ford, French Telecom, Hewlett Packard, Merck, TSMC and UMC.  Solution-Soft’s market presence is bolstered by partnerships with Citrix Systems (NASDAQ:CTXS), FalconStor. (Nasdaq:FALC), Fujitsu Siemens, Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HWP), IBM (NYSE:IBM), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Netapp (NASDAQ: NTAP), Red Hat, Inc. (Nasdaq:RHAT) and Sun Microsystems NASDAQ:SUNW).

Founded in 1993, Solution-Soft is privately held and based in Santa Clara, Calif. For more information, visit www.solution-soft.com or call +1.408.346.1400.

Contact:
         Michael Morrison,
         Solution-Soft
         408.346.1415

Solution-Soft and gdzip are trademarks of Solution-Soft Systems, Inc. Other registered trademarks are the properties of their respective owners.