SAN JOSE -- Cadence Design Systems Inc. here today announced an agreement to acquire privately-held Plato Design Systems of San Jose in a move to enhance its system-on-chip routing technology. Terms of the acquisition were not released.

Plato's NanoRoute scalable routing solution improves designer productivity for system-on-chip products and will augment the capabilities of Cadence's SoC Encounter software to address timing, signal integrity, power, run-time, and capacity issues, according to the San Jose design automation supplier.

"The combination of Cadence SoC Encounter with Plato's next-generation SoC routing technology will provide our customers an even more compelling integrated electronic design solution," said Ray Bingham, president and CEO of Cadence.

Upon completion of the acquisition, Cadence will integrate theNanoRoute technology into the SoC Encounter product family. All 24 Plato employees will become part of Cadence, reporting to Ping Chao, Cadence senior vice president and general manager of Digital IC Solutions.