Cadence Design Systems (Nasdaq: CDNS) has announced an agreement to acquire ChipStack, a Seattle-based twenty-person startup specialising in AI-powered chip verification tools. The deal, disclosed on 10 November 2025, will integrate ChipStack’s team and technology into Cadence’s verification and design automation portfolio.
ChipStack, born from the AI2 Incubator in 2023, developed agentic AI solutions that automate test planning, test generation and debugging workflows for semiconductor verification one of the most time-consuming phases of chip design. The startup had raised more than US$7 million in funding prior to the acquisition.
According to Cadence’s corporate announcement, the acquisition deepens its “AI platform and silicon agents” capability, enabling its customers to cut functional-verification cycles from weeks to days by embedding ChipStack’s intelligent agents into Cadence’s full-flow verification tools.
While financial terms were not publicly disclosed, the entire ChipStack team will join Cadence’s San Jose headquarters. The acquisition builds on an existing multi-year partnership between the two companies, in which ChipStack’s AI technology had been integrated with Cadence’s Xcelium Logic Simulator and Jasper Formal Verification Platform.
Industry observers say the move reflects growing demand for leveraging AI to tackle the increasing complexity of semiconductor verification, particularly for advanced node, heterogeneous-integration and AI-centric chip designs, where verification bottlenecks are becoming critical. With the addition of ChipStack, Cadence is strengthening its position in the high-end electronic design automation (EDA) market.
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