In a chip design software consolidation, the Mountain View, California-based Synopsys Inc has definitive agreement to buy Epic Design Technology Inc in a share exchange valued at around $475m. Synopsys is to issue 0.7485 of a share for each of the 14.7m Epic shares out. Synopsys develops high-level design automation models and software for designers of integrated circuits and electronic systems, and Epic Design provides analysis, verification and reliability tools for designers of deep submicron and nanometer integrated circuits so there is no overlap. Synopsys reported sales of $353.5m in fiscal 1996, and employs 1,200 while Epic, with 200 employees, did $44m sales last year.
