Synopsys

Not to be confused with Synopsis

Synopsys, Inc.

Type	Public
Founded	1986
Headquarters	Mountain View, California
Key people	Aart J. de Geus, CEO/Chairman Chi-Foon Chan, President/COO
Industry	Software & Programming
Revenue	▲ $1,336.0 million USD (FY 2008)
Net income	▲ $190.0 million USD (FY 2008)
Employees	5,691 (October 2008) [1]
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. NASDAQ: SNPS is one of the largest companies in the Electronic Design Automation industry. 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

The company was founded in 1986 as Optimal Solutions by Dr. Aart J. de Geus and a team of engineers from General Electric's Microelectronics Center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. Since then it went through a series of acquisitions. The company has more than 60 sales, support and R&D offices worldwide in North America, Europe, Japan, the Pacific Rim, Israel, Chile and Armenia.

Synopsys opened its first office in India in 1995. As of 2007, Synopsys' major competitors are Cadence Design Systems, Mentor Graphics, and Magma Design Automation.

Acquisitions, mergers, spinoffs

Building on the Hillsboro, Oregon, campus

• 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 Aachen Technical University (ISS) in Germany, spearheaded by Professor Heinrich Meyr^[2] and Professor Gerd Ascheid.^[3] COSSAP was a competing product to SPW^[4] from Cadence (now maintained and enhanced by Coware).^[5] Synopsys stopped support on COSSAP since 2003 and now promoting the enhanced tool Cocentric System Studio.

• 1997: acquired EPIC Design Technology Inc., USA

• 1997: acquired Viewlogic Systems, Inc., USA

• June 6, 2002: merger with Avanti Corporation, USA. Avanti was founded when several ex-Cadence employees bought the startup ArcSys. Avanti merged with ISS gaining Hercules its DRC/LVC tool (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.^[6] 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.^[7] The criminal case had just concluded, with Avanti executives pleading no contest to trade-secret theft, conspiracy to commit trade-secret theft, receiving stolen property, and securities fraud, and several receiving jail time. To acquire Avanti, Synopsys paid about $55 million in golden handshake^[8] and poison pill^[9] payments to these same executives. Synopsys then paid an additional $265 million to Cadence to settle the remaining civil suit and $26.1 million to Silvaco to settle two of three Silvaco's suits against Meta Software and its President filed in 1995 and inherited by Avanti ^[10]

• 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. (Note: 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 technology assets of Analog Design Automation, Inc., USA

• October 2004: acquired assets of Monterey Design Systems, Inc., USA

• October 18, 2004: acquired 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.

• 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,^[11] 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.^[12]

• June 18, 2007: Acquired ArchPro Design Automation Inc.

• July 30, 2007: Completes Acquisition of MOSAID Semiconductor IP Assets ^[13]

• October 2, 2007: Acquired Sandwork Design.^[14]

• March 30, 2008: Announced acquisition of Synplicity, the leader in FPGA synthesis and rapid prototyping technology.^[15]

• December 18, 2008: Acquired ChipIT Business Unit from ProDesign Electronic GmbH, Germany ^[16]

• May 8, 2009: Acquired Analog Business Group (Chipidea) from MIPS Technologies^[17]

Management team

• Dr. Aart J. de Geus, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
• Dr. Chi-Foon Chan, President and Chief Operating Officer
• Brian Beattie, Chief Financial Officer

Notable persons

• Aart J. de Geus, founder
• Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli, co-founder.

References

This article needs references that appear in reliable third-party publications. Primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject are generally not sufficient for a Wikipedia article. Please add more appropriate citations from reliable sources. (December 2006)

External links

• Synopsys Web Site
• Synopsys SolvNet
• Synopsys Users Group
• ESNUG (Deepchip.com)
• Synopsys Asia Pacific
• Synopsys Japan
• Synopsys Europe
• Events@Synopsys