Intel bolsters its SoC design tools with NetSpeed Systems acquisition

Intel pledges to "honour NetSpeed's existing customer contracts", but will take its technology in-house

Intel has acquired NetSpeed Systems, a San Jose, California-based provider of systems-on-a-chip (SoC) design tools, which has been integrated into Intel's Silicon Engineering Group.

Intel's statement revealing the deal indicates that the acquisition is intended to "help Intel more quickly and cost-effectively design, develop and test new SoCs with an ever-increasing set of IP [intellectual property]", and Intel will therefore no longer be selling NetSpeed's technology and intellectual property to third parties.

It has, however, said that it "expects to honour NetSpeed's existing customer contracts, but NetSpeed will become an internal asset going forward".

NetSpeed customers include Sondrel, a UK-based supplier of complex IC solutions, Chinese AI specialist Cambricon, Northwest Logic, Risc-V super-computer-on-a-chip specialist Esperanto Technologies, MIPS, Synopsys and Cadence.

NetSpeed was co-founded by Sundari Mitra, who has served as CEO; and chief technology officer Sailesh Kumar.

For Mitra, the acquisition marks a return to Intel. "Intel has been a great customer of NetSpeed's, and I'm thrilled to once again be joining the company," said Mitra, who worked at Intel as a chip designer earlier in her career.

She continued: "Intel is world class at designing and optimising the performance of custom silicon at scale. As part of Intel's Silicon Engineering Group, we're excited to help invent new products that will be a foundation for computing's future."

Intel justified the acquisition in terms of the growing complexity of the SoC market. "As SoCs grow more complex and as new fabrication processes explode the number of design rules, architects are increasingly utilising front-end tools like NetSpeed's to automate the design and validation process - saving time and money," the company explained.

It continued: "NetSpeed's technology helps architects estimate and optimise SoC performance in advance of manufacturing through a system-level approach, user-driven automation and state-of-the-art algorithms."