Synopsys

Synopsys, Inc.

Type	Public
Traded as	NASDAQ: SNPS
Industry	Software & Programming
Founded	1986 by David Gregory, Aart de Geus
Headquarters	Mountain View, California, U.S.
Key people	Aart J. de Geus (Founder, Chairman & CEO) Chi-Foon Chan (President & COO)
Revenue	$2.057 billion USD (FY 2014)[1]
Net income	$259.12 million USD (FY 2014)[1]
Number of employees	9,436 (Fourth quarter Fiscal 2014)[2]
Website	www.synopsys.com

Coordinates: 37°23′32″N 122°02′50″W / 37.3921°N 122.0471°W / 37.3921; -122.0471

Synopsys, Inc., an American company, is the leading company by sales in the Electronic Design Automation industry.^[3] Synopsys' first and best-known product is Design Compiler, a logic-synthesis tool. Synopsys offers a wide range of other products used in the design of an application-specific integrated circuit. Products include logic synthesis, behavioral synthesis, place and route, static timing analysis, formal verification, HDL (SystemC, SystemVerilog/Verilog, VHDL) simulators as well as transistor-level circuit simulation. The simulators include development and debugging environments which assist in the design of the logic for chips and computer systems.

History

Founded in 1986 by Dr. Aart J. de Geus and a team of engineers from General Electric's Microelectronics Center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, Synopsys was first established as "Optimal Solutions" with a charter to develop and market ground-breaking synthesis technology developed by the team at General Electric.

Acquisitions, mergers, spinoffs

• 1994: acquired Cadis, Aachen, Germany. Through this acquisition Synopsys got the communication systems and DSP design tool suit named COSSAP. COSSAP stood for Communication System Simulation and Application Processor. Synopsys carried out various communication (predominantly wireless modems) design and consulting activities using this tool (and later the evolved new tool Co-centric System Studio). The Cadis group was a spin-off development initiative from Institute for Integrated Signal Processing Systems (ISS), RWTH Aachen, spearheaded by Professor Heinrich Meyr^[4] and Professor Gerd Ascheid.^[5] COSSAP was a competing product to SPW^[6] from Cadence (now maintained and enhanced by Coware).^[7] Synopsys stopped support on COSSAP since 2003 and is now promoting the enhanced tool Cocentric System Studio.
• 1997: acquired EPIC Design Technology Inc., USA
• 1997: acquired Viewlogic Systems, Inc., USA
• 1998: acquired Systems Science, Inc.
• June 6, 2002: merger with Avanti Corporation, USA. Avanti was founded when several ex-Cadence employees bought the startup ArcSys, which had previously merged with ISS, gaining Avanti its DRC/LVC tool Hercules (including 3D silicon structure modeling), then bought Compass Design Automation, which had fully integrated IC Design Flow and ASIC Libraries, especially its place and route tool, which Avanti reworked to create Saturn and Apollo II; and it also bought TMA which brought their pioneering TCAD and Proteus Optical proximity correction tools. This was, by far, Synopsys' most significant and controversial acquisition. At the time Avanti was the #4 company in the EDA industry, and was struggling with a major lawsuit from Cadence for software theft.^[8]

• September 12, 2002: acquired Co-Design Automation, Inc. USA. Co-Design pioneered the Superlog language, a superset of the popular Verilog hardware description language, extending its capabilities into verification and system design. Superlog formed the basis of The SystemVerilog language standardized by Accelera in 2003.
• September 20, 2002: acquired inSilicon Inc., USA
• March 3, 2003: acquired Numerical Technologies, Inc. USA, a pioneer in design for manufacturing software which included CATS mask fracturing. Synopsys paid about $250 million in cash.
• February 23, 2004: acquired Accelerant Networks, USA
• February 26, 2004: acquired assets of Analog Design Automation, Inc., USA
• October 2004: acquired assets of Monterey Design Systems, Inc., USA
• Oijiuired Cascade Semiconductor Solutions Inc., USA
• November 2, 2004: acquired Integrated Systems Engineering AG (ISE), Switzerland, a TCAD company.
• November 2, 2004: acquired assets of LEDA Design, Inc., USA, a developer of mixed-signal intellectual property.
• 2004: After acquiring Monterey Arset and Leda Design, Opened Synopsys Armenia (CJSC). Home to 8% of the company's worldwide engineering force.^[9]
• December 1, 2004: agreement to acquire Nassda Corp., USA, an integrated circuit simulator company and settle the litigation between the two companies
• December 7, 2005: Acquired HPL Technologies,^[10] a semiconductor analysis software manufacturer that makes software specializing in wafer design analysis and yield enhancement for wafer process.
• May 16, 2006, announced expanding its presence in electronic system-level (ESL) design by acquiring Virtio Corporation, creator of virtual platforms for embedded software development.
• June 21, 2006: Santiago Chile, Synopsys R&D Center Chile Opening.
• August 16, 2006: Acquired Sigma-C a Munich-based lithography simulation company.^[11]
• June 18, 2007: Acquired ArchPro Design Automation Inc.
• July 30, 2007: Purchased certain semiconductor IP assets from MOSAID Technologies.^[12]
• October 2, 2007: Acquired Sandwork Design.^[13]
• March 30, 2008: Announced acquisition of Synplicity, the leader in FPGA synthesis and rapid prototyping technology.^[14]
• December 18, 2008: Acquired ChipIT Business Unit from ProDesign Electronic GmbH, Germany^[15]
• May 8, 2009: Acquired Analog Business Group (Chipidea) from MIPS Technologies^[16]
• Feb 2, 2010: Acquires VaST Systems Technology Corporation.
• Feb 8, 2010: Announces an acquisition of CoWare Inc.^[17]
• June 10, 2010: Announces an acquisition of Synfora Inc.^[18]
• Sep 2, 2010: Announces an acquisition of Virage Logic Corporation.^[19]
• Oct 7, 2010: Announces an acquisition of Optical Research Associates.^[20]
• Sep 2, 2011: Announces an acquisition of nSys Design Systems.^[21]
• Oct 7, 2011: Announces an acquisition of Extreme DA.^[22]
• Feb 15, 2012: Completes acquisition of the mask patterning business of Luminescent Technologies, Inc., thus adding Inverse Lithography Technology (ILT) to its manufacturing product line.
• Feb 22, 2012: Completes acquisition of Magma Design Automation with the cash value of transaction of about $523 million, or $7.35 per Magma share.
• May 8, 2012: Announces an acquisition of RSoft Design Group.^[23]
• July 30, 2012: Announces acquisition of Ciranova.^[24]
• Aug 3, 2012: Announces an acquisition of SpringSoft for $406 million.^[25]
• Feb 19, 2014: Announces acquisition of Coverity for $350 million.^[26]
• May 15, 2014: Announces acquisition of Kalistick for an undisclosed amount.^[27]
• September 18, 2014: AMD and Synopsys entered into a multi-year agreement which grants AMD access to Synopsys’ intellectual design IP. In return Synopsys gets access to a team of AMD's IP R&D engineers. According to Mark Papermaster, AMD’s senior Vice President and CTO, “We have partnered with Synopsys for tools and IP for more than a decade, and this expanded relationship is a great example of leveraging high-quality, standard IP for cost-effective reuse across multiple solutions.”^[28]

Acquisitions

ARC International

ARC Embedded Processors

Type	Private company
Industry	Digital IP Embedded Processor Cores DSP Cores
Headquarters	Mountain View, California
Key people	Yankin Tanurhan, VP Processors, SoC, and NVM
Products	Processor IP
Number of employees	110 (before acquisition)
Website	Official website

ARC International PLC was the designer of ARC (Argonaut RISC Core) embedded processors, which were widely used in SoC devices for IoT, storage, digital home, mobile, and automotive applications. ARC processors have been licensed by more than 200 companies and are shipped in more than 1.5 Billion products per year.^[29] ARC International was acquired by Synopsys in 2010.

The roots of ARC International date back to the early 1990s. The company was founded by Jez San to build upon the 3D accelerator technology previously developed for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System by a division of Argonaut Software. This forerunner to the ARC was originally called the Mario (Mathematical, Argonaut, Rotation & I/O) chip and later dubbed the Super FX. It went on to sell millions, at the time outselling ARM or any other RISC core.^[30]

Following the success of the Super FX, its designers were split from the main company to a subsidiary called Argonaut Technology Ltd (ATL). The design was renamed to ARC and marketed as a general-purpose configurable microprocessor. Later, ATL spun off as a separate company, ARC International. In 1995 Bob Terwilliger took over as ARC's first CEO. He created the company licensing strategy, commercialized the product including the acquisition of Metaware, VAutomation and Precise Software. He raised $50 million pre-IPO and took the company public in September 2000, raising an additional $250 million.

A list of notable events following:

• 21 September 2000, ARC listed on the London Stock Exchange as ARK.^[31]
• 17 June 2002, ARC took over three companies, MetaWare, VAutomation, and Precise Software Technologies ^[32] but later parts were sold off to other companies.
• April 2007, ARC acquired Teja Technologies of San Jose, California, a specialist in heterogeneous multiprocessor software.^[33][34]
• 14 June 2007, ARC acquired Tenison Design Automation of Cambridge, UK, a provider of software tools used to help develop system-on-chip (SoC) designs.^[35][36]
• 23 September 2007, ARC acquired Alarity Corporation of St. Petersburg, Russia, that specializes in codec software, firmware, and advanced multimedia architectures.^[37][38][39]
• 11 February 2008, ARC acquired Sonic Focus, a specialist developer of audio enhancement technology for digital sound.^[40]
• 29 July 2009, ARC confirmed they were in discussions with a third party regarding an offer for the company.
• 18 August 2009, Virage Logic Announces Intent to Acquire ARC International'.^[41]
• 15 September 2009, Virage Logic Declares Offer to Acquire ARC International Unconditional in All Respects.^[42]
• 5 November 2009, Virage Logic completes acquisition of ARC International.^[43]
• 10 June 2010, Synopsys declares offer to acquire Virage Logic including ARC
• 2 September 2010, Synopsys completes acquisition of Virage Logic^[44]

Avanti Corporation

Avanti Corporation (the 'i' in "Avanti" is upside down, so it is also often seen as Avant!) was an electronic design automation company, purchased by Synopsys in 2002. (See wikt:avanti for the meaning of the word.)

CoWare

CoWare, Inc.

Type	Private
Industry	Software & Programming
Founded	1996
Headquarters	San Jose, California
Key people	Alan Naumann, President/CEO
Website	www.coware.com

CoWare, now part of Synopsys, was a supplier of platform-driven electronic system-level (ESL) design software and services. CoWare was headquartered in San Jose, California, and had offices around the world, major R&D offices in Belgium, Germany and India.

CoWare development was initiated by the Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC) in Belgium as an internal project in 1992.^[45] In 1996, CoWare spun off as an independent company.^[46] CoWare is one of the founding member of SystemC language^[47] In 2005, CoWare acquired the Signal Processing department from Cadence.^[48] On February 8, 2010, Synopsys has announced an acquisition of CoWare.^[49]

Its products included : Platform Architect, Model Designer, Model Library, Processor Designer, Signal Processing Designer and Virtual Platform Designer.

Novas Software

Novas Software

Former type	Private Company
Fate	Acquisition
Founded	1996
Defunct	2008
Headquarters	San Jose, California
Key people	Scott Sandler, President & CEO
Products	Debussy Debug System Verdi Automated Debug Siloti Visibility Enhancement
Slogan	Accelerating Engineers
Website	www.novas.com

Novas Software (often referred to as "Novas") was a company founded in 1996 by Dr. Paul Huang to address the ongoing problem of debugging chip designs. Novas was purchased by Taiwan-based EDA company SpringSoft in May 2008. Prior to its purchase, Novas was partly owned by SpringSoft, which developed the underlying debug technology.^[50] Until 2008, Novas grew to employ over 50 people with office locations across the world, headquartered in San Jose, California. SpringSoft and Novas was acquired by Synopsys in 2012.

Novas offered debugging and visibility enhancement products that cut down on verification time. Novas' main product offerings included the Debussy Debug System, Verdi Automated Debug System and the Siloti family of Visibility Enhancement products. A 2006 study found Novas Software to be the sixth most-used EDA vendor.^[51] Along with this, Novas Software topped the user satisfaction ratings with 100% of respondents in Europe, 83% in North America & 69% in Asia saying they were either "very" or "somewhat" satisfied.^[52] This distinction was also awarded to Novas Software for the four years prior to 2006.

Numerical Technologies

Numerical Technologies, Inc. was a San Jose, California, USA based EDA public (NASDAQ: NMTC) company. The company is primarily known for its IP portfolio, software tools and services covering alternating Phase Shift Mask (alt-PSM) Technology providing sub-wavelength design to manufacturing solutions. On March 3, 2003 it was acquired by Synopsys.

SpringSoft

SpringSoft

Type	Public Company
Traded as	TWSE: 2473
Founded	1996
Headquarters	Hsinchu, Taiwan
Key people	Martin Lu, CEO
Products	Debussy Debug System Verdi Automated Debug Siloti Visibility Enhancement
Slogan	Accelerating Engineers
Website	SpringSoft

SpringSoft is a software company that developed VLSI design and debugging software. The company was founded with a grant from the Taiwanese National Science Council in February 1996.

In 1997, SpringSoft established Novas Software in Silicon Valley to market Springsoft's VLSI Debugging software. SpringSoft created a custom layout tool called Laker and a US-based company called Silicon Canvas. In May 2008, SpringSoft purchased Novas Software Silicon Canvas and combined them to form the wholly owned subsidiary SpringSoft USA. SpringSoft employed over 400 people with office locations across the world.

Synopsys announced its acquisition of SpringSoft in 2012.^[53]

Synplicity

Synplicity Inc. was a supplier of software solutions for design of programmable logic devices (FPGAs, PLDs and CPLDs) used for communications, military/aerospace, consumer, semiconductor, computer and other electronic systems. Synplicity’s tools provided logic synthesis, physical synthesis, and verification functions for FPGA, FPGA-based ASIC prototyping, and DSP designers. Synplicity was listed on Nasdaq until it was acquired by Synopsys for $227 million ^[54] in a transaction finalized May 15, 2008. Synplicity was founded by Ken McElvain (Chief Technical Officer) and Alisa Yaffa (former CEO).

Management team

• Dr. Aart J. de Geus, Chairman and co-Chief Executive Officer^[55]
• Dr. Chi-Foon Chan, President and co-Chief Executive Officer^[55]
• Brian Beattie, Chief Financial Officer

Notable persons

• Aart J. de Geus, founder
• Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli, co-founder
• Deborah A. Coleman, independent director, former CFO and VP of Operations at Apple Computer.^[56]

See also

• List of EDA companies

References

External links

• Synopsys Web Site
• Synopsys SolvNet
• Synopsys Users Group
• Synopsys Asia Pacific
• Synopsys Japan
• Synopsys Europe
• Events@Synopsys
• Synopsys Corporate Blogs
• Synopsys Publications

Programmable logic Concepts ASIC SOC FPGA Logic block CPLD EPLD PLA PAL GAL Reconfigurable computing Xputer Soft microprocessor Circuit underutilization Languages Verilog A AMS Icarus VHDL AMS VITAL SystemVerilog DPI SystemC AHDL Handel-C PSL UPF PALASM ABEL CUPL PSHDL OpenVera C to HDL Flow to HDL MyHDL JHDL ELLA Companies Accellera Actel Achronix AMD Aldec Altera Atmel Cadence Cypress Duolog Forte Intel Lattice National Mentor Graphics Microsemi Signetics Synopsys Magma Virage Logic Texas Instruments Tabula Xilinx Products Hardware Stratix Virtex (FPGA) Software Altera Quartus Xilinx ISE ModelSim Simulators IP Proprietary ARC LEON LatticeMico32 MicroBlaze PicoBlaze Nios Nios II Open-source LatticeMico8 OpenCores OpenRISC 1200 RISC-V JOP