Synopsys was founded by Aart de Geus, David Gregory and Bill Krieger in 1986 in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. The company was initially established as Optimal Solutions with a charter to develop and market logic synthesis technology developed by the team at General Electric's Advanced Computer-Aided Engineering Group. The company changed its name to Synopsys and shifted to Mountain View, California in 1987.

It became a public company through an initial public offering in February 1992.