Why Did Altair Acquire Concept Engineering?

Altair and Concept Engineering plan to build EDA visualization and debug solutions.

The Acquisition of Concept Engineering

Altair recently announced the acquisition of Concept Engineering, an electronic system visualization company based in Freiburg, Germany, that was founded in 1990. Concept Engineering produces several vision tools for electronics design in the automotive and aerospace industries and the company’s software will be integrated into Altair’s Electronic Systems Design family of tools.

Concept Engineering has a full set of products that help engineers visualize electronics design. The firm also provides debugging utilities for designers in the verification stages of development. Altair is bolstering its position as a major player in electronics simulation with this acquisition.

EDA on the Rise

Electronic design automation (EDA) has come a long way in a short time. In the early days of CAD, the focus was on mechanical design. Electronics designers could use the two-dimensional tools to create the geometric layout of a circuit board, but it wasn’t a focus. Even over the last decade, many companies used the AutoCAD electrical extension as their main design tool. Several new utilities are now available for designers working on modern semiconductor chips.

These tools are in play when every consumer is surrounded by smart devices. The Internet of Things (IoT) helps ensure that everything is connected—and that means we must reconsider which objects we classify as electrified. Thermostats, dog collars, couches and bicycles are now connected to networks, and designers are required to ensure that electronic systems fit in those spaces while meeting durability requirements. Concept Engineering supports OEMs and component suppliers with a suite of products that center on problem-solving and visualization in the electronics design realm.

Concept Engineering’s Multiple Methods of Visualization

The Concept Engineering portfolio is split between debugging tools, visualization tools and a platform built for industrial systems study. The overarching theme that runs through these tools is simplification—when an engineer can get a base understanding of the connections and relationships between components and systems, then the design can improve.

The debugging aspect of product design and development is huge. Creating a design and then testing it is at the heart of engineering. The value of an engineer is often found not during the theoretical phase when everything fits together perfectly on screen but during the practical phase when the design or prototypes are being tested or simulated and reality isn’t meeting the design intent. Concept Engineering says that electronics design debugging takes up 39 percent of the verification process. As semiconductors continue to get more and more complex. debugging will become an even greater time-consuming, detail-oriented process.

Four different debugging tools are in place for different applications. StarVision PRO inputs hardware description language (HDL) information and translates it into visual diagrams. System-on-a-chip devices and systems are the biggest customers for StarVision. It is the most general purpose of the debugging tools and the one that most easily incorporates third-party component information for visualization. RTLvision PRO uses the register-transfer level (RTL) abstraction to show the flow of data between registers. The tool analyzes clock domains and waveforms to create visualizations and schematics for troubleshooting.

GateVision PRO shows full systems for debugging processes. (Image courtesy of Concept Engineering.)

GateVision PRO shows full systems for debugging processes. (Image courtesy of Concept Engineering.)

GateVision PRO focuses on showing a system as a series of logical gates, with similar GUI menus embedded to customize the presentation. SpiceVision PRO is the simulation program with an integrated circuit emphasis (SPICE) branch of the visualization machine, taking on what the company calls “the common currency of the EDA world.” This SPICE visualizer takes data from digital and analog circuits, mixed-signal ASICs, printed circuit boards and MEMS to create circuit schematics.

NIview generates circuit schematics at the operator level. (Image courtesy of Concept Engineering.)

NIview generates circuit schematics at the operator level. (Image courtesy of Concept Engineering.)

While the debugging series of tools is used to find problems, the visualization tools are used to share designs and schematics with coworkers or customers. The NIview family of widgets are used by “tens of thousands” of EDA applications. Separate widgets are available for the Qt, Tcl/Tk, Java, JavaScript, Microsoft Foundation Class, Win32, wxWidgets, and Perl platforms. Optional add-ons for NIview include the T-engine for visualizing transistor-level schematics, the S-engine for system-level schematics, and the E-engine for automotive and aerospace applications.

Concept Engineering says that most CAD or EDA software options have some mechanism to create electronics visualizations, but generating schematics isn’t the company’s core competency. CAD and EDA vendors have come a long way with component rendering, but the finer points of customizing a circuit diagram are not yet in place. Concept Engineering, in contrast, is in the business of showing off electronics diagrams and has a range of options to show stakeholders the specific information needed. NIview can also provide a consistent presentation of designs and systems for a company that works with multiple EDA tools.

Development engineers can quickly visualize unfamiliar systems. (Image courtesy of Concept Engineering.)

Development engineers can quickly visualize unfamiliar systems. (Image courtesy of Concept Engineering.)

The third piece of the company’s offerings is the visualization platform, EEvision, which is built for manufacturing and service applications in the automotive and aerospace industries. Concept Engineering says that the massive complexity of cars and aircraft creates too much documentation soup. However, with its tools, a development engineer focused on one system can easily pull up simplified schematics on the interfacing systems to gain an understanding of inputs and outputs. Manufacturing and service engineers can take a VIN number from a vehicle and pull up information about exactly which design revision components are in the build, and which diagnostic trouble codes are relevant to the vehicle’s option package. The platform can input CAD data, model-based systems engineering data, or CSV files to generate schematics and diagrams. EEvision is compatible with Windows and Linux or is available as a cloud product.

Altair and Concept Engineering Together—What Does It All Mean?

Altair has a history of making smart acquisitions to build up its competencies instead of developing tools in-house. The Concept Engineering move is a full acquisition as opposed to the licensing agreements of the Altair Partner Alliance, where customers can use non-Altair tools. The company seeks the best tools in the industry that are doing well in segments where it isn’t currently a leader and works to bring those functions under the Altair umbrella. Like the PSIM addition earlier this year, the Concept Engineering tools will be integrated slowly into the Electronic Systems Design catalog while being readied for a cloud deployment.

The mass migration to the cloud must have also been a big consideration for Altair in this acquisition. Even EDA visualization, which shows designs at a simple level, requires lots of images and graphics. These images in turn require more GPUs and more computing power. Instead of worrying about updating current workstations and servers, the convenience of moving those concerns to a cloud provider is an attractive option.

Absorbing an existing company comes with both challenges and opportunities. The merging of different personnel, equipment, software and infrastructure needs to be managed. However, Altair is well-versed at bringing in new teams, and the new business possibilities are huge. The OEMs that integrated Concept Engineering’s widgets and viewers into their designs and systems are now working with Altair products. Concept Engineering’s engineers can now enjoy the benefits of software development inside a much larger infrastructure. For Altair’s existing customers that transition to Concept Engineering tools, a preexisting symbol translator tool will help them to move back and forth between standard symbol libraries.

“Concept Engineering’s advanced, reactive visualization technology is a best-in-class solution to help organizations accelerate their designs that have specific design architecture requirements, as well as rigorous service needs,” said Altair CEO James Scapa. “Integrating this technology into our electronic system design suite will offer our customers comprehensive and fast visual representations of complex system models and debug capabilities for electronic systems.”