By Ed Sperling
Ansys completed its $314 million cash acquisition of Apache, less than two months after it was announced. Ansys, whose strength is primarily in simulation software, should be particularly well positioned for 2.5D and 3D stacked die with Apache’s low-power modeling tools.

Cadence bounded way back last quarter, reporting Q2 revenues of $283 million compared to $227 million in Q2 of 2010, and net income of $27 million, down from $49 million in the same period last year. The net income/revenue discrepancy is partly due to a repurchase of debt. On a non-GAAP basis, net income was $32 million in Q2 vs. $18 million Q2 of 2010. The company expects revenues to grow to $280 million to $290 million this quarter.

Mentor Graphics’ embedded in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) platform is now in compliance with the GENIVI alliance, a collaboration between auto companies and the consumer electronics industry. The platform is available for both Intel’s Atom and ARM architectures.

LG Electronics has inked a deal to use Tensilica’s HiFi Audio DSP and its software codecs for HDTV. This is an interesting win, particularly from the standpoint of which companies didn’t get the contract.

Lauterbach has added debugger support for MIPS’ MK14K cores, which should help decrease debug time on SoCs using this version of MIPS processors. Lauterbach already supports a bunch of other MIPS processors.

Cadence took the covers off its software-driven approach to design called EDA 360. The company contends it’s not just about Cadence, but time will tell who else follows the company’s lead. It also announce a partnership with Wind River—not exactly shocking given the fact that some of the new upper management came from there—and its new Palladium XP that combines simulation, acceleration and emulation.

Mentor Graphics and Lauterbach inked a deal to jointly deliver a hardware-accelerated software development and debug platform for SoC verification. The deal combines Mentor’s Veloce emulation with Lauterbach’s debug tools.

Synopsys introduced universal DDR controllers that are both faster and which reduce the cost of embedded DRAM interfaces. The company says the new controllers reduce latency and silicon area by up to 50% vs. previous generations of its own controllers.

On the financial front, Actel announced Q1 earnings, showing revenue up 7.8% from the same period in 2009 and up 5.2% from Q4. Net income was $2.9 million, vs. a loss of $3 million in Q1 of 2009. http://www.actel.com/company/press/files/2010q1pr.pdf

Also showing positive gain, MIPS posted its fiscal Q3 results, ended March 10. Revenue was $17.5 million, up 15% sequentially and net income was $3.1 million, flat from the previous quarter and the same quarter in 2009. More telling, though, royalties were up 13% year over year and licensing revenue was up 42%.

ARM sailed into Q1 with $143.3 million in revenue compared with $120.9 million in the same quarter in 2009. Profits before tax were up 57% year over year. What downturn? http://www.arm.com/about/newsroom/arm-holdings-plc-reports-results-for-the-first-quarter-ended-31-march-2010.php

And Cadence reported revenue of $222 million, up from $206 million for the same period in 2009. Net loss was $12 million vs. $63 million in Q1 2009. Projections for next quarter continue to point toward a gain a revenue and a reduction in the loss—not to mention a profit in non-GAAP terms.