Synplicity will bring to Synopsys a capability in the FPGA market which Synopsys has long sought but not yet developed, and a capability in rapid prototyping which Synplicity has made its speciality.

For Synplicity, life after the $277m takeover will get better because Synplicity's sales people will have access to Synopsys' customer base it was said at the Globalpress Summit Conference in San Francisco yesterday.

"We have the opportunity to expand our footprint on our accounts because Synopsys has strong relationships with leading IC companies", said Gary Myers, CEO of Synplicity which was acquired by Synopsys last month.

"We will be able to better address complexity in the FPGA business as well as a rapid prototyping capability for Synopsys' customer base."

Surprisingly, hardware boards for FPGA prototyping are a $300m-$500m market, according to Myers, and Synplicity has the only complete tool for hardware and software prototyping.

"More than 50 per cent of ASICs require at least on re-spin," said Myers, "why don't the chips work? Most of the time it's a functional failure. The chip has not been verified properly. The failure can be reduced significantly with prototyping."

Myers will join Synopsys as a general manager. Synplicity co-founder, CTO, and vice president Ken McElvain will join Synopsys as a systems architect.

Synopsys paid 50 per cent over market price for Synplicity allegedly to stop Cadence buying it. Synplicity made a net profit of $13m last year and has cash in hand of $39m.