Pyxis Technology Inc., a design-for-manufacturability routing company based in Santa Clara, Calif., has raised $5.25 million in additional Series B funding. The round total now stands at $14.45 million. KT Venture Group was joined on the new tranche by return backers Austin Ventures, CMEA Ventures and Formative Ventures.
PRESS RELEASE
Pyxis Technology, Inc., an electronic design automation (EDA) company offering high-performance integrated circuit (IC) auto-routing software, has raised $5.25 million in an extension to its Series-B financing. This most recent round featured the addition of strategic investor KT Venture Group, LLC, the investment partner of KLA-Tencor Corporation (NASDAQ: KLAC). Existing investors Austin Ventures, CMEA Ventures and Formative Ventures also participated in this round. The new funds will be used to accelerate deployment of the Pyxis NexusRoute high-performance, yield-aware auto-router announced in September of 2007 (see the prior press release).
“Pyxis Technology has a strong value proposition for their customers”, said Stefano Concina, general partner at KT Venture Group. “Their correct-by-construction approach and their ability to tune the IC routing to enhance design-for-manufacturing (DFM) are in alignment with KLA-Tencor’s strategy to address design-dependent manufacturing, inspection and yield issues. ”
“Since the introduction of NexusRoute in Q4 2007, we have seen a steady increase in sales activity from key semiconductor suppliers who are aggressively moving to 45nm process technologies”, said Brian Connors, general partner of Formative Ventures. “Pyxis technology is being validated on some of the most challenging designs in the industry and we look forward to Pyxis using this new financing to capitalize and expand upon their momentum.”
“We continue to show customers that our correct-by-construction architecture can deliver vastly cleaner designs at 45nm with greatly improved router throughput, faster circuit performance, lower power and higher predicted yield”, said Phil Bishop, CEO of Pyxis. “Our ability to seamlessly blend NexusRoute into the major EDA flows has made it easy for our customers to quickly bring up the tool and be productive on designs that other routers are struggling with.”
“We are pleased to have the KT Venture Group join the existing investors in Pyxis”, said Krishna Srinivasan, partner at Austin Ventures. “KLA-Tencor’s strong connection into the manufacturing world will be required by Pyxis’ customers for 45nm and sub-45nm technologies.”
“The Pyxis NexusRoute software is showing extremely good results at 45nm where other routers are failing”, said Faysal Sohail, managing director of CMEA Ventures. “Combining superior routability, runtime, timing, power reduction and DFM makes NexusRoute the router of choice for technologies at 45nm and below.”
About Pyxis
Pyxis Technology delivers software and services to address the problems that chip designers and foundries face in the physical design, layout, and routing of nanometer-scale integrated circuits (ICs) and systems on a chip (SoCs). Pyxis NexusRoute is a high performance, yield-driven auto-router, architected for process technologies of 65nm and below. Based on open, industry standard interfaces and easily integrated into existing design flows, NexusRoute simultaneously optimizes design performance, power and yield. Using NexusRoute, customers have seen as much as a 4X improvement in design closure cycle time with faster circuit performance, lower power and up to a 10% increase in predicted yield. Pyxis Professional Services help customers maximize IC yield and manufacturability by leveraging DFM and yield enhancement approaches within their design environments. Pyxis has offices in Austin, Texas. For more information, see www.pyxistech.com
About KT Venture Group
Formed in 2000, KT Venture Group, LLC, the investment partner of KLA-Tencor Corporation (NASDAQ: KLAC) and is chartered with exploring and investing in early-stage, start-up companies in the electronics industry. KT Venture Group targets industries that complement KLA-Tencor’s line of products and services, including the semiconductor, reticle, wafer manufacturing, data storage and electronic design automation (EDA) markets. In addition, the KT Venture Group seeks to pursue other emerging electronics markets in which KLA-Tencor’s technology and expertise can provide unique value. Further information on KT Venture Group can be found at: www.KTVentureGroup.com
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