Aldec Inc. was founded by Stanley M. Hyduke in 1984 to pursue incremental, compilation-based EDA tools. The first DOS-based software included a schematic tool with a background simulator that tracked all design changes and produced instant simulation results. Since the simulator showed outstanding performance, it was repackaged to work with other schematic capture programs and was introduced under the name Standard Universal Simulator for Improved Engineering (SUSIE). The SUSIE simulator was sold to over ten CAE companies that incorporated it into their own products on an OEM basis.
Initially, Aldec specialized in gate-level design simulation tools. Since all models were written in VHDL, these were the most widely used VHDL structural simulators. In 1996, Aldec demonstrated at the Design Automation Conference (DAC) in Anaheim the patented Incremental Design Accelerator (IDA), which was the predecessor of the current HES accelerator product line. In 1997, the company introduced HDL design verification software that quickly matched performance of the best tools on the market. Aldec's HDL products are characterized by ease of use, extended functionality, efficient use of memory and high performance.
Aldec is currently delivering high performance, HDL-based design verification software for UNIX, Linux, and Windows NT platforms. In addition to software simulators, Aldec has released a hardware accelerator that speeds its UNIX and Linux-based simulator, Riviera.
