Synopsys, Inc. is an American multinational electronic design automation (EDA) company headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, that focuses on design and verification of silicon chips, electronic system-level design and verification, and reusable components (intellectual property). Synopsys supplies tools and services to the semiconductor design and manufacturing industry. Products include tools for implementation of digital and analog circuits, simulators, and debugging environments that assist in the design of chips and computer systems. In 2024, Synopsys was listed as the 12th largest software company in the world.
History
Synopsys was founded by Aart de Geus, David Gregory, Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli and Bill Krieger in 1986 in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. The company was initially established as Optimal Solutions with a charter to develop and market logic synthesis technology developed by the team at General Electric's Advanced Computer-Aided Engineering Group. The company changed its name to Synopsys and moved to Mountain View, California in 1987. It became a public company through an initial public offering in February 1992, opening on NASDAQ at $7.13 a share and closing on the first trading day at $7.88. 2 million shares were offered; the company offered 1.55 million shares and stockholders offered 450,000 shares.
In 2006, the company built a supercomputer for EDA applications using commodity Linux servers and off-the-shelf hardware that was listed on the TOP500 as the 242nd most powerful computer, based on results on the LINPACK benchmark.
Synopsys has been a constituent of the Nasdaq-100 and S&P 500 indices since 2017.
Synopsys engineers began developing reinforcement learning applications for electronic design automation in 2017, which led to the introduction of the DSO.ai (design-space optimization) product for digital chip implementation in 2020, followed by a series of AI tools for IC verification and test, as well as other applications. In 2023, Synopsys announced the Copilot product in collaboration with Microsoft that leveraged large language models from OpenAI to assist in chip design. (For more information, see #Adoption of AI technologies.)
In August 2023, Synopsys named COO Sassine Ghazi as CEO. Ghazi succeeded Aart de Geus in January 2024, with de Geus transitioning to the role of executive chairman.
On July 17, 2025, Synopsys completed its acquisition of Ansys, a global provider of engineering simulation software. The transaction, first announced on January 16, 2024, was valued at approximately $35 billion, making it the largest acquisition in Synopsys’ history. Several media outlets described the deal as one of the largest transactions in the engineering and software industry. The merger combines Synopsys’ EDA dominance with Ansys’ multiphysics simulation expertise, promising a new era of co-optimized chip and system design In November 2025, it was reported that Synopsys planned to lay off about 10% of its workforce and close certain locations as part of a restructure following the acquisition of Ansys. The layoffs will largely take place during fiscal year 2026.
Markets and competition
Synopsys faces significant competition in the electronic design automation market, primarily from Cadence Design Systems and Siemens EDA (formerly Mentor Graphics), with the three companies collectively dominating approximately 75% of the global EDA market as of 2024. Additionally, Synopsys is the second largest semiconductor design intellectual property (IP) company by revenue (after ARM Holdings) and leads in market share for IP license revenues, notably providing reusable chip design modules such as those supporting Ethernet and UALink for advanced data center connectivity and AI accelerator infrastructure.
Geographic presence Headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, Synopsys maintains extensive office locations worldwide, including a strong presence across North America, Asia, and Europe. The company has approximately 5,300 employees in the United States. As of 2026, Synopsys' permanent workforce numbers approximately 24,000 worldwide, with thousands of employees distributed across additional offices and remote locations, including significant operations in India, Canada, China, Mexico, Armenia, France, Singapore, and other regions. Its international offices can be found in cities such as Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver (Canada); Yerevan and Gyumri (Armenia); Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Noida (India); Penang (Malaysia); and Singapore, among others. In France, which is a major European presence, mostly due to the Ansys acquisition, there are several offices, with the major ones being located in Lyon, Paris, Grenoble and Nice, all together comprising approximately 740 employees. Synopsys also maintains a significant engineering and development presence in Portugal, employing over 850 people across two main technical hubs. The company operates offices in Lisbon (located in the Lagoas Park business complex in Porto Salvo) and Porto (situated within the Tecmaia technological park in Moreira da Maia). These locations function primarily as core microelectronics design centers, focusing on analog design, integrated circuit and digital verification, hardware prototyping, and firmware development. In Canada, the company has approximately 1,200 employees across all its offices. It is also one of the largest employers for engineers in Armenia, employing over 1,000 people across its offices in Yerevan and Gyumri. The company has substantial presence in Asia, where Synopsys operates major R&D and sales hubs in India across its offices, with the main ones being Bangalore, Noida, Pune and Hyderabad, employing approximately 6,400 people within a country that hosts roughly 20% of the world's semiconductor design engineers. China on the other hand accounts for around 2,000 employees across its main office locations in Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing, and Shenzhen, while Japan and South Korea have 500 employees on each of their ends, operating primarily out of Tokyo and Osaka for Japan, and Seoul for South Korea.
Synopsys operates on a global scale, with its business spread across several major regions and markets. The United States is the company's largest market, contributing 44.71% of total revenue in fiscal year 2024 (approximately $2.74 billion). Other significant markets include China, which represented 16.15% of revenue ($989.52 million); Korea, accounting for 12.62% ($773.02 million); and Europe, with 10.03% ($614.58 million). The company also recorded 16.49% of its revenue ($1.01 billion) under the "Other Countries" category, highlighting a diversified international footprint, which includes India contributing $250 million in revenue.
Business in the United States In addition to doing business with multiple American chip design and system integration companies, Synopsys maintains government contracts, which are often focused on research and development initiatives.
In 2020, the United States Department of Defense announced Synopsys as a partner in U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Automatic Implementation of Secure Silicon (AISS) research program along with ARM, Boeing, IBM, and other entities focused on developing automated design tools for secure chips. In October 2022, Synopsys joined Intel's US Military Aerospace and Government Alliance (USMAG), under which Synopsys supplies secure EDA tools, IP, and design services for the US DoD and other government branches along with other chip design companies including Cadence and Siemens EDA. In 2025, DARPA announced companies that have been selected for the initial stage of the government's Quantum Benchmarking Initiatives (QBI), in which Synopsys is participating along with Hewlett Packard, Applied Materials, University of Wisconsin and other organizations to advance quantum computing research and development. The company contributes its expertise in modeling and simulation, EDA tools and semiconductor IP, as part of this multi-partner effort to determine whether an industrially useful quantum computer can be built more rapidly than conventional projections suggest.
Business in China In 2017, the company established a $100 million strategic investment fund for the Chinese market.
In April 2021, following a Washington Post report on the use of Synopsys and Cadence Design Systems technology in the People's Liberation Army's military-civil fusion efforts, U.S. legislators Michael McCaul and Tom Cotton requested that the United States Department of Commerce tighten controls on the sales of semiconductor manufacturing software. In 2022, Bloomberg reported that Synopsys was under investigation by the United States Department of Commerce for unlawful technology transfers to sanctioned companies in China such as Huawei's HiSilicon and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation.
In May 2025, the Trump administration briefly paused the issuing of licenses for exports of airplane and semiconductor technology to China, which impacted Synopsys and other American Electronic Design Automation vendors.
(For more information, see #Export control restrictions.)
Offices in Armenia Synopsys Armenia is one of the largest Synopsys sites outside the United States, employing more than 1,000 people across two offices in Yerevan and one in Gyumri, making it one of the largest IT employers in the country. The Armenian offices serve as a research and development hub, providing support for electronic design automation (EDA), design for manufacturing (DFM), and semiconductor intellectual property (IP) solutions. Synopsys Armenia's teams work on advanced logic and analog integrated circuit design, software development, and verification, contributing both to global product support and innovation. In addition to technical work, Synopsys Armenia invests heavily in workforce development and professional education, collaborating with local universities to train highly skilled specialists in microelectronics and related fields.
Adoption of AI technologies In March 2020, Synopsys introduced DSO.ai (Design Space Optimization AI), a cloud-based AI-based software tool for chip design, The software uses AI (reinforcement learning) to automate logic synthesis as well as place and route decisions for circuit blocks.
In March 2023, Synopsys expanded its artificial intelligence applications by introducing VSO.ai (Verification Space Optimization) and TSO.ai (Test Space Optimization) as part of the Synopsys.ai suite. VSO.ai uses machine learning to accelerate verification coverage closure and identify functional coverage gaps, while TSO.ai applies reinforcement learning to optimize test pattern generation.
In November 2023, Synopsys launched Synopsys.ai Copilot through a collaboration with Microsoft, integrating Azure OpenAI service to provide generative AI capabilities for semiconductor design via the use of large language models.
In 2026, Synopsys introduced an agentic AI technology called AgentEngineer for chip design tasks. The company says the technology is meant to automate engineering work across the chip design process, from implementation through verification and debugging. In March 2026, Synopsys announced multiphysics fusion technology, the first EDA software resulting from the company's Ansys acquisition. As of June 2026, customers of multiphysics fusion include Nvidia, MediaTek, and Cisco.
Mergers and acquisitions Synopsys has grown significantly by acquiring companies in electronic design automation and related fields.
Virtio Corporation Virtio Corporation was founded in 1999 and based in Campbell, California, USA with development centers in Campbell and Livingston, Scotland, UK. Virtio Corporation was a pioneering creator of Virtual SoC Platforms for early embedded software development. Virtio Corporation was acquired by Synopsys in May 2006.
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