( SNUG 03 Item 19 ) ---------------------------------------------- [05/14/03]
Subject: The Problem With Dataquest's Physical Synthesis Stats
SIX OF ONE, HALF A DOZEN OF ANOTHER: One of the major sticking points that
Gary Smith of Dataquest and I have is how to "bucket" the revenue numbers in
the physical synthesis horse race. Here's what Gary has:
Dataquest FY 2001 ASIC Floorplanning Market (in $ Millions)
Cadence #### $15.4 (52%)
Synopsys/Avanti ## $8.9 (30%)
Monterey . $2.1 (7%)
others # $3.3 (11%)
Dataquest FY 2001 ASIC Physical Synthesis Market (in $ Millions)
Synopsys/Avanti ########## $41.2 (41%)
Magma ######## $31.1 (31%)
Cadence ###### $24.1 (24%)
Monterey # $4.0 (4%)
Looking at this, it appears that Magma is in the No. 2 position in the
physical synthesis market and Cadence is lost in the woods. The problem
with this is that it's very misleading. Cadence own a massive part of
the P&R market:
Dataquest FY 2001 ASIC P&R Market (in $ Millions)
Synopsys/Avanti ######################## $93.9 (36%)
Cadence ########################################## $167.0 (64%)
And Magma's no where to be seen in this niche? But is that truely accurate?
From my conversations with Magma users in ESNUG 374 #7, it's abundantly
clear that Magma customers in 2001 were all using BlastFusion in a *purely*
gates-to-placed-and-routed-gates mode -- i.e. it was actually a P&R tool
then -- not a synthesis tool in any way, shape or form. Monterey is a
similar story. So doing a 90% / 10% split, it might be more honest to
"bucket" the revenues as:
Dataquest FY 2001 ASIC Physical Synthesis Market (in $ Millions)
Synopsys/Avanti ########## $41.2 (60.2%)
Cadence ###### $24.1 (35.2%)
Magma # $3.1 (4.5%)
Monterey . $0.4 (0.5%)
Dataquest FY 2001 ASIC P&R Market (in $ Millions)
Synopsys/Avanti ######################## $93.9 (32.1%)
Cadence ########################################## $167.0 (57.0%)
Magma ####### $28.0 (9.6%)
Monterey # $3.6 (1.4%)
Now Cadence is in the No. 2 position of physical synthesis, with Magma and
Monterey desperately far behind. Also this has the issue of missing out on
the significant floorplanning part of the physical synthesis horse race.
You could just separate out the standard P&R tools and lump everything else
(including floorplanning) into one Overall Physical Synthesis Market:
Dataquest FY 2001 Overall Physical Synthesis Market (in $ Millions)
Synopsys/Avanti ######################### $50.1 (38.5%)
Cadence #################### $39.5 (30.4%)
Magma ############ $23.9 (31%)
Monterey ### $6.1 (4.7%)
others # $3.3 (2.5%)
But this is misleading, too, because it ignores the massive revenue that
Cadence and Synopsys/Avanti get from the P&R market, while giving Magma
and Monterey 100% credit for their P&R revenue. Aaaaaargh!
OK, now we could return those estimated pure P&R portions of Magma and
Monterey back into the standard P&R "bucket", making it:
Dataquest FY 2001 True Physical Synthesis Market (in $ Millions)
Synopsys/Avanti ######################### $50.1 (52.0%)
Cadence #################### $39.5 (41.0%)
Magma ## $3.1 (3.2%)
Monterey . $0.4 (0.4%)
others ## $3.3 (3.4%)
Dataquest FY 2001 ASIC P&R Market (in $ Millions)
Synopsys/Avanti ######################## $93.9 (32.1%)
Cadence ########################################## $167.0 (57.0%)
Magma ####### $28.0 (9.6%)
Monterey # $3.6 (1.4%)
This final "rebucketing" has the physical synthesis and P&R markets as a
clash between two the titans Synopsys & Cadence -- and the itty, bitty
Magma & Monterey were there (in FY 2001) purely for entertainment value.
But is it really that fair to give that much weight to floorplanning here?
I'm not trying to say any one of these ways is the right way to look at the
Dataquest physical synthesis and P&R market numbers; I'm just trying to show
how hard it is these days to know who's really where (percentage-wise) in
this market. At best, all you can get is a muddy 1-2-3 picture.
"Competence, like truth, beauty and contact lenses, is in the eye
of the beholder."
- Laurence Peter (1919 - 1988), author of "The Peter Principle"
"The truth is out there."
- a motto from the X Files TV series
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