In keeping with our core value of envisioning the future, Altair recently acquired Metrics Design Automation, led by a legend in the EDA space, Joe Costello. Their technology is a powerful addition to our portfolio that will help us disrupt the electronic design automation (EDA) space. Metrics’ digital simulator, combined with Altair® Silicon Debug Tools™, will deliver a world-class simulation environment that boasts the industry’s premier simulation and debug capabilities.

The semiconductor and EDA sector is undergoing a seismic shift – from a traditionally mechanical landscape to a more technical landscape, driven by 3D integrated circuit (IC) and the convergence of mechanical and electrical engineering. Metrics delivers a game-changing simulation as a service (SaaS) business model for semiconductor electronic functional simulation and design verification.  

Metrics’ technology expands Altair’s semiconductor and EDA offering and strengthens the Altair® HyperWorks® design and simulation platform for our 16,000 customers, giving Altair a unique position within the rapidly changing market.

Customers have shared our competitors are more expensive and lack accessibility, flexible workflows, scalable licensing, and trusted partnership. Our EDA solutions streamline development, eliminate costly design iterations, and ensure design perfection from the start with advanced silicon debugging tools, rapid 3D IC electrothermal-mechanical simulations, and best-in-class high-performance computing (HPC) solutions accelerate design while maximizing value. 

Disrupting the Semiconductor and EDA Sector

We believe this acquisition will disrupt the semiconductor and EDA market, which is seemingly dominated by just a few massive organizations. In addition to Altair Silicon Debug Tools delivering a world-class simulation environment boasting the industry’s premier simulation and debug capabilities, our cloud-based business model has the potential to transform the semiconductor space by making high-caliber EDA design tools more affordable and more accessible for organizations looking to aggressively accelerate design cycles.

Today, IC design verification has high licensing costs and may require hundreds or even sometimes thousands of seats to run a single chip simulation. Often, these tools run on desktop machines or compute farms and are typically not cloud-native or cloud-enabled. 

Altair’s solution will give organizations the ability to seamlessly run anywhere – as a desktop app, on company servers, or in the cloud. It supports SystemVerilog and VHDL for digital circuits targeting application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). This means simulations can be run concurrently and at scale, slashing time and costs throughout the traditional design cycle. 

The digital simulator will be available through Altair One®, our cloud innovation gateway, where it will also be available for desktop download. Fully featured and optimized for speed, capacity, and accuracy, the digital simulator innovation provides customers with Altair’s best-in-class digital simulation technology that empowers them to quickly track down design problems and move complex devices into production earlier and with more confidence. 

Costello, one of the founders of the modern EDA industry – who also drove annual revenues to over $1 billion as the president of Cadence Design Systems and in 2004 was awarded the Phil Kaufman Award by the Electronic System Design Alliance – built a brilliant team at Metrics. I’d like to thank him for his keen insights and for trusting us with the technology and the team. They will be an invaluable addition to our organization.

A New Avenue for Semiconductor and EDA Solutions

With the addition of Metrics’ technology, customers now have a choice in design verification. Altair now offers the market’s most versatile and most collaborative EDA and simulation environment, which accelerates development for users of every experience level at every design stage – from chip to board to system. Learn more about how our broader, end-to-end semiconductor and EDA portfolio empowers the electronics industry here.

We are steadfast in our commitment to providing integrated simulation, HPC, data analytics solutions, and deeply rooted domain expertise – all in one single pane of glass with the Altair Units licensing model, the market’s finest. But most importantly, we are steadfast in our commitment to being an unparalleled partner to our customers.

Final Thoughts

The acquisition of Metrics is a testament to Altair’s nearly four-decade commitment to envisioning the future. We believe our customers will gain a competitive advantage with the cutting-edge capabilities in the Altair HyperWorks platform, and we are proud to deliver what the semiconductor and EDA market has always wanted and needed: choice and flexibility at unmatched value and scale.