According to Zhito Finance APP, the leader in the chip design field—EDA software giant Synopsys (SNPS.US) announced on Wednesday local time that the company is satisfied with the temporary acceptance of its proposed "antitrust remedies" by the United Kingdom's antitrust agency, which pertains to the pending deal of the company's acquisition of Ansys (ANSS.US) for $35 billion. The large-scale acquisition proposal of Ansys announced by Synopsys is considered a "historic acquisition" in the EDA software field, and if successful, it will significantly strengthen Synopsys' leading position in EDA software, pushing its market share far ahead of its largest competitor Cadence Design Systems (CDNS.US).

"We are very pleased that today (the Competition and Markets Authority in the United Kingdom, CMA) has taken an important step by temporarily accepting the antitrust remedies we proposed in Phase One, rather than moving the deal into Phase Two of antitrust review," Synopsys stated in a press release. "Throughout the CMA's process, we will continue to maintain constructive and collaborative communication with the CMA. We expect that customers will also continue to express their overwhelming support for this deal."

Synopsys additionally stated that this major transaction is expected to be completed in the first half of 2025.

In addition, on the same day, the CMA indicated that there are "sufficient reasonable grounds" to believe that the proposed remedies offered by both parties may ultimately be accepted by the agency under the 2002 Enterprise Act.

Previously in December, the CMA expressed concern that this transaction may reduce the competitive scale in the UK market. However, the agency also stated that if its concerns are alleviated, it could quickly approve the transaction.

As part of the proposed remedies to address the antitrust concerns of the transaction, Synopsys previously stated that it would sell its optical solutions business to Keysight Technologies. It also proposed to sell Ansys' PowerArtist business segment.

In January 2024, Synopsys announced that it has agreed to acquire Ansys, a leader in the simulation Software field, for approximately 35 billion dollars in Cash and Stocks. According to the terms of the Trade, Ansys Shareholders will receive up to 197 dollars per share in Cash as well as 0.3450 shares of Synopsys common stock.

Synopsys has established a leading position in the EDA Software field, providing a wide range of chip design Software and tools, which are essential tools for designing chips and nicknamed as the 'mother of chips.' Ansys primarily offers simulation type Software, particularly in the engineering field, such as structural, fluid dynamics, and electromagnetic simulations.

Chip design experts believe that by acquiring Ansys, Synopsys can further enhance its technological strength in the chip design simulation phase, especially in system-level simulations and integrated simulation tools, providing a more comprehensive product portfolio that helps major chip design clients like NVIDIA, AMD, and Broadcom better perform end-to-end simulations. For the entire chip design process, simulation is undoubtedly a core technological aspect. Therefore, after integrating Ansys' simulation technology through this acquisition, Synopsys will certainly be better prepared to meet the design demands of next-generation Semiconductors, especially those involving highly complex design requirements in areas such as 6G technology, AI Chips, and quantum computing chips.

As leaders in the chip design field like NVIDIA, AMD, and technology giants such as Apple, along with Cloud Computing giants like Amazon and Microsoft, accelerate the development of high-performance AI Chips, their demand for Synopsys' EDA Software, which can design more complex AI Chip architectures while leveraging new AI technologies to speed up chip design, continues to expand.

Chip design companies like NVIDIA and AMD require more powerful EDA Software tools to meet the complex design demands of AI Chips. As AI Chip architectures need to be upgraded rapidly to keep pace with the exponentially growing compute power demands, these chip design giants are increasing their efforts to purchase EDA to accelerate development. In addition, technology giants like Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta are also intensifying their efforts to launch self-developed Server CPUs and high-performance AI Chips for Datacenters, prompting them to increase their purchase of EDA Software tools.