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"Nangate is now taking a new step, including the synthesis of the transistor layout in itself to become part of the physical synthesis. This brings a much better utilization of physical synthesis for higher performances, lower costs and lower power consumption," commented Nangate's co-founder, president and CEO Ole Christian Andersen. "The essence of what we are trying to do is to bring together the two disciplines of physical synthesis, on the one hand, and the creation of tailored cell libraries for chip designers, on the other hand." Andersen explained that all current RTL synthesis tools, offered by Cadence Design Systems Inc. (San Jose, California), Magma Design Automation Inc. (Santa Clara, California) and Synopsys Inc. (Mountain View, California), rely on a predefined standard cell library. The libraries are created independently and are re-used for different types of design. Nangate Design Optimizer, however, provides the new capability to combine synthesis with library creation for a better utilization of the CMOS processes. It also enables to identify and uses high pin count and complex gate functions that existing synthesis tools cannot use, he continued. "RTL synthesis is basically the process of translating a technology independent specification in VHDL or Verilog into a netlist of gates from a standard cell library," Andersen further explained. "Design Optimizer operates on the gate level, taking as input a gate-level netlist along with a source library, and outputs a new optimized netlist along with a new target library. The target library can be the same as the source library, it can be an augmented library or it can be a completely new library depending on the optimization mode chosen." In creating a full library, the library designer must specify what functions are needed and the drive strengths for each function. In addition, the row height of the cells and the cell template must be specified. These library parameters have a huge impact on how well the RTL synthesis can perform its function. Nangate asserted that Design Optimizer combines the optimization of the library parameters with synthesis and can thereby reach a whole new level of optimization. Nangate said Design Optimizer is fully compatible with Nangate Library Creator and Library Characterizer. These three solutions are, however, independent, and a company that has a well-established flow can select solely Design Optimizer. Design Optimizer, due to be available by the third quarter of 2007, has already been put out for evaluation with a select set of customers. An undisclosed beta customer in the communication area said it has been able to gain 24 percent die area reduction. Nangate was founded in October 2004 in Herlev (Denmark) by an experienced management team, including entrepreneurs from Danish IC startup Exbit Technology, acquired in 2001 for $164 million by Vitesse Semiconductor Corp. (Camarillo, California). Commenting on Nangate's genesis, Andersen declared: "When we started Nangate, we had a rough idea of what we wanted to do. We were fortunate to find a university in South Brazil where Professor Renato Ribas had done research in this area. We concluded an agreement to fund a research lab and start a local company there doing research and development in the area of re-synthesis and automated cell creation." In April 2006, Nangate raised $10 million in series A financing from a consortium of investors, including Vaekstfonden, IVS A/S and SEED Capital. "The three investors gave us the fuel to accelerate Nangate's growth. We would not be here with our Design Optimizer tool without the funds raised. We would be still in the development phase," indicated Andersen, specifying that the funds helped the company "go out and recruit key people from the EDA and the chip industries." Nangate now employs more than 65 people at offices in Herlev, Moscow (Russia), in Porto Alegre (Brazil) and corporate headquarters in Menlo Park (California). The startup said it plans to open new sales offices in the United States and settle in Asia, probably through sales representatives. Looking ahead, Andersen declared: "It is in the nature of things when you ask for venture capital to make an exit sometime. An acquisition or an initial public offering is something we will be looking for."