Ampsa (Pty) Ltd develops, markets, and sells synthesis software for radio frequency and microwave impedance-matching networks, amplifiers, and oscillators. Ampsa was founded in May 1986 by Pieter L.D. Abrie as a South African closed corporation to market his MultiMatch impedance-matching software. Ampsa was converted to a company in 1996. While amplifiers were developed for some customers, the focus in Ampsa remained on development of the software.

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Development of the software started in 1982 in Fortran on an IBM mainframe at the University of Pretoria, while Pieter Abrie was employed by the University as a lecturer. Pieter Abrie’s first Artech House book (The Design of Impedance-Matching Networks for Radio-Frequency and Microwave Amplifiers) was published in 1985 while he was employed by the University. He left the University in September 1989 as an associate professor to market and develop the software on a full-time basis.

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The mainframe software evolved into an extended DOS program and then into a Windows program. At some point the original Fortran code was converted to C and then C++. The commercial software started off as the MultiMatch Impedance-Matching Wizard, then became the MultiMatch Amplifier and Oscillator Design Wizard, and today it is the Ampsa Amplifier Design Wizard.

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The first MultiMatch license was sold to a South African company in 1985. The University, a few employers, and several key customers, colleagues and friends supported Pieter Abrie and Ampsa’s efforts over a long time and without them the software would not be where it is today. The initial direction the commercial software was developed into was steered to a large degree by their design needs. The overriding factor was, however, Pieter Abrie’s own design needs.

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While there are many original features in the ADW, the ADW as it exists today would not be possible without the efforts and published results of many of the researchers in this field.​