Solution-Soft Releases gdzipTM Version 2.0

Santa Clara, Calif., May 12, 2003 – Solution-Soft Systems, Inc., a global leader in virtual clock and time travel testing 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 leader in virtual clock, time shift testing software solutions for the ever-changing digital world. Our flagship and market proven product, Time Machine, opened up brand new possibilities in the application testing landscape upon its release in 1997. Today, thousands of applications have been tested with Time Machine, and IT professionals recognize that using a virtual clock is the ideal and safest way to conduct date and time testing. As pioneer in our field, we've created the Time Machine Product Suite and Time Machine for Container, a collection of cutting-edge testing software that augment Time Machine to further streamline enterprise cloud initiatives, containerization, micro services, and IT modernization for end-to-end integration testing, cloud migration, test automation, Agile/DevOPs, Continuous Operation, and Test Data Management. We proudly provide our 2000+ domestic and international customers, including 47 of Fortune 100 companies, with our advanced solutions to optimize their testing and help deliver projects on-time. Solution-Soft's customers are across all market sectors including 3M, AMEX, AIG, Australia Tax Office, BBC, Boeing, British Gas, Covered California, Department of Works & Pension, Deutsche Bank, Discover, FedEx, Federal Reserve Bank, Orange, National Australia Bank, SNCF, and Zurich Insurance. We bolster our market presence through robust partnerships with companies including Accenture, Capgemini, DXC, HPE, IBM, Infosys, Microsoft, Oracle, Red Hat, and RedMane.

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

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