Apache Design Systems acquires Optimal

By Michael Santarini, Senior Editor -- 10/29/2007

To broaden its tool portfolio beyond IC power, signal integrity and thermal analysis, EDA company Apache Design Systems has acquired package-to-PCB power and signal integrity tool vendor Optimal Corp. for an undisclosed amount.

Earlier this year, Apache made its first foray into IC-to-package power and EMI (electromagnetic interference) analysis tools with the introduction of its Sentinel tool suite. At the time of the release, the company’s president and CEO, Andrew Yang, said future plans were to add package-to-PCB analysis to the suite to allow customers to analyze power and EMI system-wide--across the IC, package, SIP, and PCB. The company seemingly gets that with its acquisition of Optimal.

In the acquisition, Apache gains roughly 20 employees and a number of established package, SIP and PCB signal and power integrity tools. Optimal fields the PakSi-E, a 3D quasi-static electromagnetic extraction tool for electronic packaging; the O-Wave full-wave 3D EM analysis for IC package, SIP, and PCB designs; PowerGrid, a power integrity tool for IR drop and ground bounce analysis for IC packages and PCBs; and thermal and mechanical analysis tool for packaging called PakSi-TM. It also offers several suites that bundle its various offerings.

Optimal has seen relatively great success for an EDA startup since its founding a few years back and has been in TSMC’s reference flow for the last four years. According to Dave DeMaria, Optimal’s CEO, the company today has 60 active tool customers and shares several with Apache, including top tier customers like Broadcom, Marvell Semiconductor, Qualcom, ST Microelectronics, Toshiba, Panasonic, AMD and Texas Instruments.

“We are hearing loud and clear from those customers that they need a strong combined solution for chip, package and systems,” said Yang. “Power and noise are not just a chip problem, they are a system-wide problem. We’ve been shopping around and talking to customers and clearly Optimal is the leader in the package extraction analysis and power integrity area. From that perspective it was a clear fit.”

DeMaria said that Optimal and Apache have been working together over the last year to integrate their tool flows for mutual customers and several customers use Optimal’s PowerGrid with Apache’s RedHawk. Meanwhile customers are also starting to use Optimal’s PakSi-E with Sentinel.

“We had already created one level of integration between our tools but customers have been pushing us to have much tighter integration,” DeMaria said. “We felt that as two independent companies it would be hard to pull off the tight integration that’s needed. The end result is we will be able to offer customers a way to look at all three domains (IC, package and PCB) simultaneously. It’s something that just didn’t exist today.”  It will exist soon, Yang added.

Yang and DeMaria said that adding functionality from Optimal’s PakSi-E, O-Wave and PowerGrid to Apache’s Sentinel and RedHawk lines should create formidable, comprehensive suites for system-wide power and signal integrity analysis. For example, the PakSi-E tool can be used to create EMI models of the package to improve Sentinel on-chip analysis of the full system. Yang also said that Apache’s IC-thermal analysis tool, Sahara-PTE  (power, thermal, electrical) also will benefit from integration with Optimal’s PakSi-TM. Yang noted that on-chip thermal analysis has yet to become a mainstream tool but as transistor leakage becomes a greater problem with each new silicon process introduction, and heat increases power leakage, thermal analysis will start to become a more mainstream problem. Having tools that can analyze not only on-chip thermal issues but also the thermal effects on the package and PCB would really help customers better control heat and power of their designs.

Apache plans to integrate the products but will also continue to offer the Optimal tools as stand alone products.

Apache also plans to honor Optimal’s OEM agreement with Cadence Design Systems. Cadence’s package and PCB division currently OEMs Optimal’s tools with its own package and PCB offerings. DeMaria, who is staying with Apache after the acquisition as group director, said Apache further plans to stay completely interoperable with third-party tool environments. Optimal for example has worked very closely in the past with Ansoft to ensure that company’s EMI tools work in the Optimal flow. The company plans to continue and extend its relationship with Ansoft and others.

Yang said Optimal R&D team in San Jose will move to Apache’s campus in Mountain View, Calif., and that with Optimal employees included, Apache now has 140 employees in 10 different countries serving customers.

The acquisition is seemingly another feather in Apache’s bonnet. Apache has been one of the few privately held EDA companies to be included in TSMC’s reference flow for several years. The company has also been profitable for several years. Yang noted that this is the first acquisition Apache has made and the company plans to keep a stellar record of profitability. “The culture of Apache is very dynamic and innovation driven. We expect that to continue,” said Yang.

With its size and success Apache’s been EDA’s top candidate to be the next EDA company to pose for a public offering. But Yang declined to comment on if and when the company will make that leap. 

Yang said the acquisition was a cash deal but the companies are not disclosing further financial details of the acquisition.

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