Cadence to acquire AWR from National Instruments
Cadence Design Systems has agreed to buy the AWR RF-design company from its current owner National Instruments for approximately $160m.
“Companies designing communication and radar chips, modules and systems face increasing time-to-market pressure in high-growth 5G/wireless applications. Creating differentiated products while reducing cycle time requires a seamless design, simulation and analysis environment,” said Cadence president Anirudh Devgan. “The addition of AWR’s talent and technologies will enable us to provide more integrated and optimized RF design solutions, thereby further accelerating system innovation as we execute our intelligent system design strategy.”
Cadence expects to be able to provide improved integration between its existing analog and RF design tools and the AWR portfolio. Joseph E. Pekarek, general manager of AWR, said: “By joining forces with Cadence, our goal is to be able to leverage the strength and heritage of the Virtuoso and Allegro platforms along with the AWR design environment platform to deliver complete solutions for complex ICs, packages, and boards.”
The integrated flows will also be connected with NI’s LabVIEW and PXI modular instrumentation systems as part of a new strategic alliance, supporting both design and semiconductor test. Cadence expects approximately 110 AWR employees to join the company after the acquisition closes, which is expected to be in the first quarter of 2020.