The EDA business is thought for the trio—Cadence, Siemens EDA and Synopsys—that dominates it and the way these corporations became giants by buying smaller EDA outfits. Now, one other EDA participant is on the horizon, taking an identical path of serial acquisitions to realize design automation software program glory.
Altair, a provider of simulation and knowledge analytics options, is chopping offers to broaden its EDA footprint in a number of design automation areas. It has simply introduced that it’ll purchase Metrics Design Automation, a Canadian firm constructed on a simulation-as-a-service (SaaS) enterprise mannequin for semiconductor simulation and design verification.
Determine 1 Merging simulation with workload and workflow optimization know-how might bolster design verification instruments. Supply: Altair
The cloud-based enterprise mannequin has the potential to make high-caliber EDA instruments rather more inexpensive and accessible at a time when IC design verification has excessive licensing prices and should require tons of and generally hundreds of seats to run a single-chip simulation. Furthermore, these EDA instruments run on desktop machines and should not usually cloud-native or cloud-enabled.
Altair plans to mix its silicon debug instruments with Metrics’ digital simulator, DSim, to supply simulation and debug capabilities as a desktop app, on firm servers, or within the cloud. This can enable design engineers to pay just for what they use. DSim might be obtainable by way of Altair One, Altair’s cloud gateway, the place it’ll even be obtainable for desktop obtain.
The mixed resolution will assist Verilog and VHDL RTL for digital circuits in ASICs and FPGAs. Metrics is led by Joe Costello, an EDA business veteran credited with turning Cadence Design Techniques right into a billion-dollar agency.
A plethora of EDA offers
Earlier this yr, Altair named EDA Knowledgeable a channel accomplice for distributing its HyperWorks design and simulation platform inside France. EDA Knowledgeable, based in 2012 and headquartered in Arcueil, France, gives technical experience and coaching to assist producers outline appropriate options for designing and manufacturing digital programs and analyzing digital boards.
Then, in June 2022, Altair introduced acquisition of Idea Engineering, a provider of computerized schematic era instruments, digital circuit and wire harness visualization platforms that present on-the-fly visible rendering, and digital design debug options. Idea Engineering’s software program can be built-in into Altair’s Digital System Design suite and obtainable through Altair Models.
Idea Engineering’s reactive visualization know-how would assist organizations speed up their designs which have particular design structure necessities in addition to rigorous service wants. Subsequent, its design debug options lined register switch stage (RTL), gate, and transistor design abstractions for each analog and digital disciplines.
Determine 2 Idea Engineering’s computerized schematic era and visualization software program parts assist builders create high-performance debugging cockpits, shorten software program device growth cycles, decrease software program growth and upkeep prices, and enhance the product high quality of EDA instruments. Supply: Altair
Lastly, in September 2017, Altair introduced that it will purchase Runtime Design Automation, a Santa Clara, California-based firm specializing in scalable options for high-performance computing (HPC). Runtime primarily served design engineers leveraging EDA instruments to design CPUs, GPUs, and system-on-chips (SoCs).
Carving an EDA area of interest?
Altair calls itself a computational intelligence specialist, however its know-how roadmap is more and more converging and colliding with EDA device choices. It’s steadily accumulating EDA options in its know-how arsenal to assert a stake within the EDA business, which is now being remodeled by synthetic intelligence (AI) and cloud computing applied sciences.
Furthermore, HPC, which Altair calls its forte, is taking center-stage within the semiconductor realm. So, the Troy, Michigan-based firm could be aiming to carve out an EDA area of interest on this burgeoning market.
Nonetheless, Altair is nowhere close to the EDA’s huge three: Cadence, Siemens EDA and Synopsys. So, will Altair proceed the acquisition spree and ultimately problem the dominance of the EDA trio? Or will it turn out to be an acquisition goal over time resulting from its strengths in HPC, cloud, and AI? We at EDN will intently watch the developments within the acquisition sphere of the EDA business.
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