( ESNUG 516 Item 3 ) -------------------------------------------- [12/13/12]
Subject: News & Rumors on Aart, OMAP, ARM, NextOp, Icahn, Jasper, EVE, XPS
ITEM 3: Here's the latest news & rumors I've heard about EDA and fabs since
my prior post. Feel free to comment/correct/scold anything you see here!
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- Since Texas Instruments cut 1,700 (mostly OMAP 6) engineers, word is
that TI is renegotiating with Synopsys and Cadence to also cut their
EDA tool contracts. (1,700 less EDA users == less EDA tools needed.)
Apple gossip web sites report "dozens" of former TI OMAP engineers
getting hired in Israel. I've also heard of Apple R&D engineers in
Silicon Valley going over to Amazon's Lab126. Musical chairs.
A related rumor is Aart de Geus had visited Lab126 in Cupertino to
sell Amazon on using Synopsys engineers to design the OMAP 6 for their
Kindles and -- get this -- use Synopsys DW ARC cores in place of the
ARM cores in this version of Amazon OMAP 6. (Saves Amazon $$$ and
is a massive design win for Aart's DW ARC cores if it happens.)
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- Word on the street is that NextOp BugScope has been involved in at
least 5 enterprise-level sales since it was acquired by Atrenta.
That's 5 major all-you-can-eat site licenses than run from $1.5
to $2.0 million per customer. $7.5 to $10 M in sales in 6 months
for a NextOp that was doing $3.5 M total per year before ain't bad!
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- Real Intent is all happy-happy, joy-joy this month because they just
announced that they doubled their business and grew their customer base
by 60%. (In numerical terms my spies tell me that means they've gone
from $4.5 M in 2011 to $9.0 M in 2012.) They've also announced a 2nd
version of Ascent Lint "with 60 new rules including FSM checks." Yay!
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- FUN QUOTE:
"The EDA IPOs a decade ago were by companies with trailing revenues
of between $11.5 M and $22 M, and barely profitable if at all."
- Kathyrn Kranen of Jasper DA on the new need to have
$40 M revenues and be profitable to IPO (EET 10/23/12)
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- The Portland Business Journal reports that Netflix, Inc. is using the
exact same defense that Mentor Graphics used to fend off Carl Icahn.
"On Tuesday, Icahn berated Netflix for adopting the poison pill and
pushed for board changes. Exactly the response he had for Mentor."
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- Sometimes when start-ups get acquired, a few of their R&D projects
are killed off. Apparently this is not the case with the Cadence
Palladium-killer that EVE is supposedly co-developing with Intel.
Word is EVE's new SNPS bosses have approved continuing its budget.
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- READER QUESTION:
"Synopsys just announced their 4Q12 numbers. Their annual totals:
SNPS FY 2011 SNPS FY 2012
Total Current Assets: $1,338 M $1,140 M
Total Revenues: $1,536 M $1,756 M
In rough terms it looks like Aart took a negative $200 M in assets in
order to make a positive $200 M in revenues.
Does this mean that if Aart had not acquired Magma, EVE, SpringSoft
in FY12, Synopsys would have had negative organic growth in 2012?
Could you get one of your Wall Street readers to comment on this?"
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- Got more details on last month's Berkeley AFS rumor. They're making
good sales to Samsung as a 2nd source SPICE supplier to Synopsys. The
juicy gossip now is Cadence is now working on a new flavor of Spectre
focused on memories -- also to feed on this 2nd source SPICE market.
Jim Hogan accidentally "outed" Spectre XPS in his Custom 2.0 Retooling
in ESNUG 515 #7. (See fig. 11 and 6 pgrphs below fig. 11.) Oops!
Even more oops, Cadence is advertising in China to hire a senior FAE
for the "fast SPICE simulator XPS development group". D'oh!!!
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- Kilopass reported a TSMC 20 nm test chip using its non-volatile memory
IP. Wow. They actually do stuff other than legal fights with Sidense!
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- FUN QUOTE
"It's about $%&#-ing time!"
- Brett Cline of Forte when he heard that Gary Smith had
finally recognized Forte as #1 in C-synthesis sales.
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- Since the lawsuit, Apple is shifting its A-series chip production out
of Samsung fabs and into TSMC fabs. Samsung raised their prices 20%
to Apple for A6's -- and says it wasn't payback. Yea, right...
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- Out of the blue, Oasys Design Systems announced 2 days ago they have
a new CEO, Scott Seaton, former VP of Sales & Marketing at Carbon.
I'm sure there's some intrigue here -- like what happened to Paul
van Besouw (the prior Oasys CEO) -- and does this mean the end of
them taking on the Synopsys Design Compiler monopoly?? Anyone know?
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- Another rumor is Aart de Geus was seen in the TSMC HQ lobby in Taiwan.
As reported before in Gadfly 051812, TSMC was furious at SNPS for
jacking up its prices 18% -- and had been getting closer to Cadence as
a result. Maybe Aart's visit was a SNPS/TSMC kiss and make-up date?
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- Gold Standard Simulations just released a new study today showing
"gate-last" fabs do much better than either "gate-first" or SOI fabs.
That's good news for TSMC 28 nm and Intel 45 nm; bad news for IBM,
Samsung, and GlobalFoundries who don't go "gate-last" until 20 nm.
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And again, feel free to comment/correct/scold/question anything you see here
by just emailing me directly. And, yes, you'll be ANONYMOUS!
- John Cooley
DeepChip.com Holliston, MA
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