Siemens acquires integrated circuit software developer Solido Design Automation to strengthen its digital offerings
Siemens is strengthening its digitalization offerings – in particular, its product lifecycle management platform – through a new acquisition.
Siemens has reached an agreement to acquire Solido Design Automation, a provider of machine learning-based variation-aware design and characterization software.
Siemens says the purchase will strengthen the integrated circuit design and verification technologies it already offers through Mentor, a previous acquisition.
The engineering giant says the acquisition continues to build on its digitalization strategy and expands its software business in North America.
The terms of the transaction are not disclosed, but Siemens confirms it has entered into an agreement to acquire Saskatoon, Canada-based Solido Design Automation, a provider of variation-aware design and characterization software to semiconductor companies worldwide.
Siemens sats Solido’s machine learning-based products are currently used in production at over 40 major companies, enabling them to design, verify, and manufacture “more competitive products than ever before”.
The acquisition of Solido further expands Mentor’s analog / mixed-signal verification portfolio to help customers address the growing challenges of IC design and verification for automotive, communications, data-center computing, networking, mobile, and IoT applications.
Siemens expects to close the transaction in early December 2017.
Tony Hemmelgarn, president and CEO of Siemens PLM Software, says: “With the acquisition of Mentor we made a large commitment to EDA.
“This new acquisition of Solido strengthens that presence and demonstrates our commitment to serving our customers in the IC industry.”
Amit Gupta, founder, president and CEO of Solido Design Automation, says: “Solido has become an invaluable partner helping our customers address the impact of variability to improve IC performance, power, area, and yield.
“Combining our technology portfolio with Mentor’s outstanding IC capabilities and market reach will allow us to provide world-class solutions to the semiconductor industry on an even larger scale.
“We are also excited to contribute to Siemens’ broader digitalization strategy with our applied machine learning for engineering technology portfolio and expertise.”
Siemens says variation-aware design and characterization has “become fundamental in developing modern semiconductor products with the best possible power, performance, and cost”.
When analog, mixed-signal, memory, and standard cell circuits are designed for today’s complex applications, the verification software “needs to deliver very high confidence in the simulation results while avoiding time- and resource-intensive analysis methods”, says Siemens.
Solido’s proprietary machine learning-based, variation-aware design and characterization software is proven to deliver the required confidence while significantly reducing time and resources and delivering unrivaled data visualization.
Ravi Subramanian, vice president and general manager of Mentor’s IC verification solutions division, says: “The combination of Solido and Mentor’s leading analog-mixed-signal circuit verification products creates the industry’s most powerful portfolio of solutions for addressing today’s IC circuit verification challenges.
“Solido joins Mentor at an exciting time. Having a power house like Siemens entering EDA is proving to be a true game changer for us.”
Siemens PLM Software, a business unit of the Siemens Digital Factory Division, is a global provider of software solutions to drive the digital transformation of industry, creating new opportunities for manufacturers to realize innovation.
With headquarters in Plano, Texas, and over 140,000 customers worldwide, Siemens says its PLM Software works with companies of all sizes to transform the way ideas come to life, the way products are realized, and the way products and assets in operation are used and understood.
