Synopsys is an American

electronic design automation Electronic design automation (EDA), also referred to as electronic computer-aided design (ECAD), is a category of software tools for designing electronic systems such as integrated circuits and printed circuit boards. The tools work togeth ...

(EDA) company that focuses on silicon design and verification, silicon

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...

and software security and quality. Products include tools for

logic synthesis In computer engineering, logic synthesis is a process by which an abstract specification of desired circuit behavior, typically at register transfer level (RTL), is turned into a design implementation in terms of logic gates, typically by a com ...

and physical design of integrated circuits,

simulators A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or process, whereas the ...

for development and

debugging In computer programming and software development, debugging is the process of finding and resolving '' bugs'' (defects or problems that prevent correct operation) within computer programs, software, or systems. Debugging tactics can involve i ...

environments that assist in the design of the logic for chips and computer systems. In recent years, Synopsys has expanded its products and services to include

application security Application security (short AppSec) includes all tasks that introduce a secure software development life cycle to development teams. Its final goal is to improve security practices and, through that, to find, fix and preferably prevent security ...

testing. Synopsys has gained attention due to its relationship with various Chinese state entities. In 2018, Synopsys formed a partnership with the

People's Liberation Army National Defence University The People's Liberation Army National Defence University () is a Beijing-based national military university administered by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and funded by the Central Military Commission. The university is the highest milita ...

and, in 2022, the company came under investigation by the

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United Stat ...

for technology transfers to sanctioned entities in China.

History

Synopsys was founded by Aart J de Geus and David Gregory in 1986 in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. The company was initially established as Optimal Solutions with a charter to develop and market synthesis technology developed by the team at

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable ene ...

. In 2022, Synopsys was reported to be under investigation by the

United States Department of Commerce The United States Department of Commerce is an executive department of the U.S. federal government concerned with creating the conditions for economic growth and opportunity. Among its tasks are gathering economic and demographic data for bus ...

for unlawful technology transfers to sanctioned companies such as

Huawei Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ( ; ) is a Chinese multinational technology corporation headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. It designs, develops, produces and sells telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics and various sma ...

's HiSilicon and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation. In July 2022, agents from Taiwan's Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau raided the offices of a Synopsys-backed firm on suspicion of illegally poaching engineers from

TSMC Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC; also called Taiwan Semiconductor) is a Taiwanese multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. It is the world's most valuable semiconductor company, the world' ...

Mergers and acquisitions

Synopsys has made some silicon and design verification acquisitions.

CoWare

CoWare was a supplier of platform-driven

electronic system-level Electronic system level (ESL) design and verification is an electronic design methodology, focused on higher abstraction level concerns. The term ''Electronic System Level'' or ''ESL Design'' was first defined by Gartner Dataquest, an EDA-industry ...

(ESL) design software and services acquired by Synopsys in February 2010.

Avanti Corporation

Avanti Corporation (styled as "Avant!) was founded when several former

Cadence Design Systems Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (stylized as cādence), headquartered in San Jose, California, is an American multinational computational software company, founded in 1988 by the merger of SDA Systems and ECAD, Inc. The company produces software, ...

employees bought the startup ArcSys, which was previously merged with Integrated Silicon Solutions (ISS), gaining Avanti its

design rule checking In electronic design automation, a design rule is a geometric constraint imposed on circuit board, semiconductor device, and integrated circuit (IC) designers to ensure their designs function properly, reliably, and can be produced with acceptab ...

and

layout versus schematic The Layout Versus Schematic (LVS) is the class of electronic design automation (EDA) verification software that determines whether a particular integrated circuit layout corresponds to the original schematic or circuit diagram of the design. B ...

tool Hercules (including 3D silicon structure modeling), then bought Compass Design Automation, which had fully integrated IC design flow and

ASIC An application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC ) is an integrated circuit (IC) chip customized for a particular use, rather than intended for general-purpose use, such as a chip designed to run in a digital voice recorder or a high-efficie ...

libraries, especially its

place and route Place and route is a stage in the design of printed circuit boards, integrated circuits, and field-programmable gate arrays. As implied by the name, it is composed of two steps, placement and routing. The first step, placement, involves decidin ...

tool, which Avanti reworked to create Saturn and Apollo II; and it also bought TMA (Technology Modeling Associates) which brought their pioneering TCAD and Proteus

optical proximity correction Optical proximity correction (OPC) is a photolithography enhancement technique commonly used to compensate for image errors due to diffraction or process effects. The need for OPC is seen mainly in the making of semiconductor devices and is due to ...

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. Avanti was merged into Synopsys on June 6, 2002 during the litigation. Synopsys paid Cadence about $265 million more to end all litigation. Soon after the settlement, the

California Supreme Court The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sac ...

upheld the lower court's earlier decision. Synopsys then paid an additional $26.1 million to

Silvaco Silvaco Group, Inc., develops and markets electronic design automation (EDA) and technology CAD (TCAD) software and semiconductor design IP (SIP). The company is headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and has a global presence with office ...

to settle two of three Silvaco's suits against Meta-Software, earlier purchased by Avanti, and its president. The lawsuits were filed in 1995 and inherited by Avanti.

Novas Software

Novas Software was a company founded in 1996 to address debugging of chip designs. Novas was purchased by Taiwan-based EDA company SpringSoft in May 2008. SpringSoft and Novas were acquired by Synopsys in 2012.

Numerical Technologies

Numerical Technologies, Inc. was a San Jose-based

public (

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

: NMTC) company. The company was primarily known for its intellectual property, software tools and services covering

phase-shifting mask Phase-shift masks are photomasks that take advantage of the interference generated by phase differences to improve image resolution in photolithography. There exist alternating and attenuated phase shift masks. A phase-shift mask relies on ...

technology. On March 3, 2003, it was acquired by Synopsys.

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 Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo Cou ...

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.

Synplicity

Synplicity Inc. was a supplier of software for the design of

programmable logic devices A programmable logic device (PLD) is an electronic component used to build reconfigurable digital circuits. Unlike digital logic constructed using discrete logic gates with fixed functions, a PLD has an undefined function at the time of manu ...

(

FPGAs A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is an integrated circuit designed to be configured by a customer or a designer after manufacturinghence the term '' field-programmable''. The FPGA configuration is generally specified using a hardware de ...

, PLDs, and CPLDs) used for communications, military/aerospace, consumer, semiconductor, computer and other electronic systems. Synplicity's tools provided

, physical synthesis, and verification functions for FPGA, FPGA-based

prototyping, and DSP designers. Synplicity was listed on Nasdaq until it was acquired by Synopsys for $227 million in a transaction finalized May 15, 2008.

ARC International

ARC International PLC was the designer of ARC ( Argonaut

RISC In computer engineering, a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) is a computer designed to simplify the individual instructions given to the computer to accomplish tasks. Compared to the instructions given to a complex instruction set comp ...

Core) embedded processors, which were widely used in SoC devices for

IoT The Internet of things (IoT) describes physical objects (or groups of such objects) with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other comm ...

, storage, digital home, mobile, and automotive applications. ARC International was acquired by Synopsys in 2010.

Black Duck Software

Black Duck Software was a privately held company focused on automating the process of identifying and creating an inventory of open source code used in software applications, as well as detecting known security vulnerabilities and license compliance issues. Black Duck Software was acquired by Synopsys in December of 2017.

WhiteHat Security

In April 2022, Synopsys announced the acquisition of WhiteHat Security for $330 million. WhiteHat Security was founded in 2001 and provides application security as well as insights for DevOps teams.

Divisions

Synopsys has three divisions: Silicon Design and Verification, Silicon Intellectual Property, and Software Integrity. The Silicon Design and Verification division focuses the design and verification of integrated circuits and designing more advanced processes and models for the manufacturing of those chips. The Silicon Intellectual Property division focuses on intellectual property for

system-on-a-chip A system on a chip or system-on-chip (SoC ; pl. ''SoCs'' ) is an integrated circuit that integrates most or all components of a computer or other electronic system. These components almost always include a central processing unit (CPU), memory ...

(SoC) designs. The Software Integrity division provides products and services for software security and quality control, including software for

DevOps DevOps is a set of practices that combines software development (''Dev'') and IT operations (''Ops''). It aims to shorten the systems development life cycle and provide continuous delivery with high software quality. DevOps is complementary to ...

environments,

programs,

software testing Software testing is the act of examining the artifacts and the behavior of the software under test by validation and verification. Software testing can also provide an objective, independent view of the software to allow the business to apprecia ...

tools, and tools for

software licensing audit A software licensing audit or software compliance audit is an important sub-set of software asset management and component of corporate risk management. When a company is unaware of what software is installed and being used on its machines, it can ...

Partnerships

In 2018, Synopsys partnered with the

to provide

field-programmable gate array A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is an integrated circuit designed to be configured by a customer or a designer after manufacturinghence the term ''Field-programmability, field-programmable''. The FPGA configuration is generally specifi ...

design training.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Electronic design automation companies Electronics companies of the United States Technology companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area Companies based in Mountain View, California American companies established in 1986 Electronics companies established in 1986 1986 establishments in North Carolina