SpringSoft (Hsinchu, Taiwan) said Certess (Campbell, Calif.) would become a wholly owned subsidiary pending shareholder and regulatory approval. SpringSoft said Certess operations would be integrated into its development, sales, support and marketing functions.

Certess, founded in 2003 by a trio of chip designers, emerged in 2007 touting functional qualification technology. The company later that year rolled out Certitude, a functional qualification software product to address the absences of quality assurance in SoCs and IP blocks.

Last year, SpringSoft merged with Novas Software Inc. and three other companies to form a new focus on automation technologies. The Certess acquisition expands the range of verification solutions offered by the company, SpringSoft said, and the Certess products will be added to SpringSoft's Novas family of verification enhancement solutions.

"Certess is one of the hot start-ups in the intelligent test bench market," said Gary Smith, chief analyst at Gary Smith EDA, in a statement. " This acquisition by SpringSoft significantly strengthens their technology portfolio, positioning them well for a shot at becoming one of the major EDA vendors in the new world of Electronic Design Automation."

SpringSoft said it would retain Certess's entire R&D operation in France and will fold the Certess field sales and support personnel into its global channel. Certess CEO Michel Courtoy will stay with the company in a non-executive consulting role, SpringSoft said. Certess employs 20 people primarily in France and the U.S., according to SpringSoft.

"This acquisition reinforces our specialization strategy and brings another high-value automation solution to the SpringSoft user community to address their pain in reaching verification closure," said Martin Lu, CEO of SpringSoft, in a statement.