Cadence buys thermal software for data-center digital twins

British thermal-simulation specialist Future Facilities has agreed to be acquired by Cadence Design Systems, as the EDA company looks to expand into tools to support the design and maintenance of data centers.

Though the acquisition will provide Cadence with a second thermal solver designed for electronic PCBs and modules, the company said the main aim of the acquisition is to provide data-center owners with digital twins of their facilities so that they can dynamically fine-tune cooling and air-conditioning across servers and racks.

Cadence said the Future Facilities technology can be used to build 3D digital twins that let operators to visualize and quantify the impact of any change in the data center prior to implementation as well as during operations, and in doing so cut their carbon footprint and avoid creating hotspots. Future Facilities technologies are already used by hyperscale, enterprise data center, managed services and colocation providers, including Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Digital Realty, Equinix and Kao Data.

As the acquisition has yet to close, Cadence said it is unable to disclose plans for the 6SigmaET electronics-design thermal engine which initially will sit alongside Celsius in the Cadence portfolio. “Pursuant to close, the teams will develop an integrated roadmap that best serves the needs of our mutual customers,” said a Cadence spokesperson.

“The global data center market is driving the digital world and is immense with investments upwards of $200 billion a year,” said Tom Beckley, senior vice president and general manager of the Custom IC & PCB group at Cadence. “The acquisition of Future Facilities boosts our Fidelity CFD solution with digital twin solutions, including electronics cooling and energy management that helps businesses maximize capacity, improve energy efficiency, reduce costs and mitigate critical infrastructure risk.”

The CFD simulations provided by the 6Sigma Digital Twin tool are intended to predict cost profiles and capacity and model improvement options.

“Using advanced CFD brings tremendous benefits when analyzing thermal efficiencies in the data center,” said Hassan Moezzi, founder and CEO of Future Facilities. “We are excited to join the Cadence team and look forward to combining our data center and electronics technology solutions with Cadence’s expertise in intelligent system design.”