Declaring that "there's room in the EDA industry for at least one pure-play DFM provider," Blaze DFM has signed a letter of intent to merge with Aprio Technologies. It's hoped that the integration of Aprio's analysis and simulation engines into the Blaze "electrical DFM" product line will result in a comprehensive electrical-DFM suite of tools.
The combined company will retain the Blaze DFM name and be headquartered at Blaze's current location in Sunnyvale, Calif. Dr. Clive Wu, Aprio's co-founder and CEO, will join Dr. Andrew Kahng, co-founder and chairman of Blaze, in the Office of the Chief Technologist. Jacob Jacobsson, president and CEO of Blaze, will continue in that role after the merger is finalized within the next few weeks.
In a joint conference call announcing the merger, Jacobsson and Wu expressed confidence that the two companies' technologies are highly complementary. "There's very little overlap between us," stated Jacobsson. "We can use almost all the tools we have built so far to create a comprehensive electrical-DFM platform." Both companies' tools are built on top of SI's OpenAccess database, which allows for design-data sharing between them.
"Aprio was addressing the analysis and optimization issues on the manufacturing end," says Wu. "But the analysis built into Blaze's tools now offers process-aware design optimization for timing and power. Together, the tools will comprise a full analysis and design suite to optimize design intent for power consumption and timing. With the merger, this loop is completed."
For more information, check out Aprio Technologies and Blaze DFM.
Reprints
