Sept. 25, 2006 — Synopsys, Inc., a maker of semiconductor design software, and Nikon Corp., a supplier of lithography equipment for microelectronics manufacturing announced that they are collaborating on the development and delivery of advanced lithography software models and DFM enabled lithography manufacturing solutions for 45 nm and below.

The Synopsys-Nikon collaboration brings together EDA design and optical lithography imaging system expertise to focus on building next generation “manufacturing-aware” lithography simulation models. At 45 nm and below, critical dimension control will be at the single nanometer levels pushing current models and optical lithography system performance to the extreme limits.