EU approves Synopsys' $35 billion Ansys deal under conditions

(Reuters) -The European Commission on Friday said it had approved the takeover by chip design software maker Synopsys of software company Ansys, with conditions to the $35 billion cash-and-stock deal announced in January last year.

The deal would see Synopsys snap up the maker of software used in creating products from airplanes to tennis rackets of players like Novak Djokovic.

To relieve competition concerns resulting from the deal, the commission said both companies have agreed to divest Synopsys' optics and photonics software and Ansys' PowerArtist software.

"The commitments fully address the competition concerns by ensuring that there will be sufficient competition and choice in the global markets for the supply of optics, photonics and register-transfer level power consumption analysis software," the commission said.

The acquisition can only be implemented, however, after the buyers of the divested parts are also approved by the EU in a separate procedure, it added.

The tie-up comes at time when leading companies including Nvidia and Intel are designing much more complex chips that are made of many pieces, as well as designing the massive computing systems that house the chips.

Synopsys makes tools to design the chips themselves, a complement to offerings from Ansys, which makes software for evaluating larger electronic systems where those chips end up.

(Reporting by Bart Meijer, Editing by Louise Heavens)

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