EDA Standards Organizations Accellera and The SPIRIT Consortium Plans Merger

The Boards of the two leading electronic design automation (EDA) industry organizations, Accellera and The SPIRIT Consortium, have agreed to a merger of the two entities, which is expected to improve the development of language-based and Intellectual Property (IP) standards.

Accellera is the leading standards organization developing language-based standards used by system, semiconductor, IP and EDA companies. The SPIRIT Consortium is the leading standards organization focused on developing standards for IP deployment and reuse.

“Within our organizations there are several areas where we are very complementary and close cooperation will be beneficial. Both organizations are aligned on the path to formal standards through the IEEE,” remarked Ralph von Vignau, President of The SPIRIT Consortium. “With this merger we can use our resources, both human and infrastructure, more effectively to develop and deploy industry-driven standards.”

“Our plans to merge benefit the worldwide electronic design community by combining our visions and leveraging our operational strengths in developing and delivering EDA and IP standards,” added Shrenik Mehta, Accellera Chair. "The merged organization with its broad and diverse participation base is well positioned to develop future standards that meet the needs of the industry."

The merged organization will be called Accellera and The SPIRIT Consortium name will continue to be associated with the organization’s ongoing IP standardization efforts. The merged organizations will work towards a greater cooperation with other standardization groups in the industry. Further details of the merger will be announced at the Design Automation Conference (DAC) in San Francisco, the week of July 27, 2009.

The two organizations currently have eight standardization subcommittees operating. These standards include: SystemRDL (Register Description Language), IPtagging, Interface Technical Committee (ITC), Open Verification Library (OVL), Unified Coverage Interoperability (UCI), Verilog Analog/Mixed Signal (AMS), Verification IP (VIP) and IP-XACT.

Accellera

The SPIRIT Consortium