Silvaco was founded in 1984 by Dr. Ivan Pesic. The initial product, UTMOST, quickly became the industry standard for parameter extraction, device characterization and modeling.

In 1985 Silvaco entered the SPICE circuit simulation market with SmartSpice.

In 1989 Silvaco entered into the technology computer aided design (TCAD) market. By 1992 Silvaco became the dominant TCAD supplier with the ATHENA process simulator and ATLAS device simulator.

In 1997 Silvaco entered the analog IC CAD market with a suite of EDA tools for schematic capture, layout, and physical verification (DRC, LVS and LPE).

In 2004, Silvaco spun out its EDA product lines as a seperate company, Simucad Design Automation. This allowed Silvaco to focus exclusively on TCAD and maintain worldwide leadership.