Siemens has agreed to acquire Defacto Technologies, a privately held electronic design automation (EDA) software company focused on automated system-on-a-chip (SoC) design creation and integration, extending Siemens’ EDA portfolio across the full SoC design lifecycle.

Defacto’s technology complements Siemens’ existing EDA solutions by extending end-to-end continuity across the SoC design lifecycle, from early design creation through downstream implementation, verification and signoff. The combined offering is intended to support advanced design workflows, enabling automation across connectivity, timing constraints and power intent process flows.

Addressing growing chip complexity

As semiconductor companies shift from monolithic designs to chiplet-based and highly configurable SoC architectures, the number of IP blocks and interconnections continues to grow rapidly. Manual SoC assembly processes are increasingly time-consuming and error-prone, driving demand for automation earlier in the register-transfer level (RTL) design phase. Defacto’s technology addresses this by automating SoC assembly, design restructuring and power intent management using a unified, persistent design database.

“With Defacto Technologies, we strengthen our ability to help customers automate SoC design creation and establish trusted design flows earlier in the development cycle,” said Ankur Gupta, executive vice president, IC Portfolio, Siemens EDA, Siemens Digital Industries Software. “By extending end-to-end continuity across the SoC design lifecycle, we help semiconductor teams manage complexity, improve productivity and make informed design decisions earlier.”

Founded in 2003 and based in Grenoble, France, Defacto Technologies develops software for automated SoC design creation, with a focus on RTL design. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

“Joining Siemens represents an important next step for our organization and our customers,” said Chouki Aktouf, chief executive officer, Defacto Technologies. “This next chapter opens significant opportunities for our customers by combining our deep expertise in SoC design automation with the breadth of Siemens’ EDA portfolio.”

The deal follows Siemens’ recent acquisition of Precision Innovations to expand AI-powered SoC design exploration and optimisation, part of a broader push by the company to build out automated, AI-assisted tools across the chip design lifecycle as demand for custom silicon accelerates globally.