( ESNUG 528 Item 1 ) -------------------------------------------- [05/23/13]
Subject: News & Rumors on SNPS, Atoptech, TSMC, Calibre, BDA, Apache, Sonics
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!
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- I've heard from a single source who has an excellent rumor record
that Synopsys is about to sue Atoptech and serve them with papers
fairly soon. Sniffing around, what I've found is that in June 2011,
Extreme DA licensed its Parmetric OCV signoff technology used in
their GoldTime STA tool to Atoptech -- to use in Atoptech's P&R and
timing engine. POCV is less pessimistic than standard OCV -- thus
POCV helps make Atop's Aprisa and Apogee tighter-yet-accurate tools.
Problem is Aart sued Extreme DA in June 2011. Then 5 months later
Synopsys fully acquired Extreme DA in October 2011.
So it's my guess this rumored lawsuit, if true, is Aart's lawyers
wanting to somehow "undo" the original POCV licensing deal; as a
sleazy attempt to cripple a rival P&R start-up.
"If you can't beat them, sue them."
- an old American business proverb
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- Showing how painful it was to lose Altera to Intel 14 nm, in his
13Q1 earnings call TSMC CEO Morris Chang freely admitted this loss
kicked off an internal inquisition on it:
"I regret it and because of this, we have thoroughly critiqued
ourselves. If there was a thing like an investigative
commission on what happened, we had it. And there were, in
fact, many reasons why it happened and we have taken them to
heart. And it's a lesson to us and I don't think that we;
at least, we'll try our very best not to let similar kinds
of things happen again."
- Morris Chang, CEO TSMC, (04/18/13 earnings call)
Exactly as predicted 7 weeks before this TSMC earnings call in
ESNUG 510 #3, Chang also sees Intel 14 nm as "cherry picking the
lucrative fab deals".
"And I still view Intel as a selective picker among customers.
As a foundry competitor, they will pick their targets and so
on. And I don't view them as a general competitor because
they have already said, through the 3 criteria that they used,
that they will not be a general or front [garbled] competitor.
But they are a very serious competitor for our customers.
- Morris Chang, CEO TSMC, (04/18/13 earnings call)
In that same call, Brett Simpson of Arete Research said: "On Intel,
we saw this Altera deal and there's rumors Cisco is going to follow."
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- FUN QUOTE
"%*^&-ing Sawicki!!! He's got Samsung chatting up his damn
Calibre at 14 nm in their %*^&-ing DAC booth. Samsung never
does $#*% for anyone. Never for us."
- a competitor's reaction to his first seeing the
MENT DAC Monday Samsung 14 nm Calibre talk
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- New dirt on CDNS vs. BDA lawsuit has John Chilton of Synopsys and
Ravi Subramanian of BDA in meetings -- presumably about a buyout.
If true, it'd be ironic how Cadence was driving down the price
plus speeding up the schedule of Synopsys' acquisitions. (Ouch.)
Oops! Word is Agilent GoldenGate interfaces to CDNS Virtuoso ADE
the same way BDA does -- i.e. GoldenGate uses the SKILL interface
NOT the Cadence-approved OASIS interface. So will Agilent be the
"Doe #3" after Mentor Calibre Interactive becomes "Doe #2"???
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- Semiaccurate earlier reported Apple is designing its own GPU chip.
"About 1-2 months ago, a team at AMD responsible for some
of the most difficult portions of the GPU, up and quit."
- Charlie Demerjian of Semiaccurate (01/02/13)
The story is the ATI-to-AMD-to-Apple design team is NOT doing an
ARM-based design, but a full blown new Apple-only internal GPU.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- Remember right after Apache got bought out by Ansys how that rockstar
Apache sales guy, Craig Shirley, jumped to Atrenta -- and then after
a few weeks he jumped to IC Manage? It wasn't because Ajoy was doing
anything wrong -- rumor is Apache CEO Andrew Yang threatened to sue
Craig for violating his Apache Non-Compete Clause if Craig worked for
Atrenta -- since both Apache and Atrenta sell RTL power optimizers.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- Remember that earlier rumor on Sonics laying of their Taiwan and
Armenia R&D offices -- hinting they might have $$$ troubles? Well,
earlier this month Sonics licensed 138 NoC patents to ARM Ltd for a
rumored $26 million in cold hard cash. (My congrats to Sonics.)
In related gossip, supposedly ARM Ltd made a lowball ~$45 M offer
to buy out Arteris FlexNoC serious enough that Charlie Janac, CEO
of Ateris, brought in Morgan Stanley as banker. Now the rumor is
Charlie's trying to bring in Synopsys for a bidding war. If true,
my congrats to yet another Janac brothers EDA/IP success!
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- FUN QUOTE
"Why am I always writing another check to this guy?"
- a rumored complaint by Antun Domic of Synopsys on
acquiring yet another Jim Hogan start-up
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- Germany-based OneSpin CEO, Raik Brinkmann, has been seen visiting
Silicon Valley for the past two weeeks. Rumor is he's on courting
visits with SNPS/CDNS/MENT to get acquired. That $1 M Altera deal
helps his $2 M start-up. A London private equity firm put $2.5 M
into them. Looking for $8 M to $12 M back. Word is Jasper turned
down a OneSpin "buy us! buy us!" offer 2 years ago.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- FUN QUOTE
"That R.I.P. Virtuoso banner is unprofessional and offensive.
You should take it down immediately."
- an anon email, presumably a Cadence employee,
about this Analograils R.I.P. Virtuoso ad >>>--------------->
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- FUN FACT:
Design Automation & Test in Europe (DATE) conference attendance
2005: ########################## 3895
2006: ############################### 4651
2007: ################################# 4922
2008: ############################### 4670
2009: ################# 2476
2010: ############# 1925
2011: ############### 2290
2012: ############### 2200
2013: ########### 1600
Most Americans describe DATE as Europe's DAC. This year DATE 2013
was held in March in Grenoble, France.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- Don't look for Tuscany DA at DAC this year. DAC'11 was their last.
They pitched "Pinpoint", an EDA aware web-based status tool which
was voted #3 with users at DAC'10. Rumor is Dassault got them for
cheap in December 2012. Wonder where Keith Mueller is now.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- FUN QUOTE
"Just promise me that I won't have to personally wrestle
a gator before I cook it."
- Kathryn Kranen, Jasper CEO, on hearing her company
plans to do a wild game BBQ at DAC Tuesday lunch
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- Word is Ansys corporate is slowing taking over more and more of
Apache's functions and in 2014 Apache will officially be Ansys.
Also rumor is the last merger bonuses were paid out in the Dec'12
to Jan'13 timeframe -- hinting that some Apache core staff will
use this DAC to seek out new start-ups to possibly join.
Similar employees-want-to-jump rumors are being said about the
Synopsys Springsoft Laker staff -- but I can't tell whether or
not it's just FUD being put out by SNPS full custom rivals.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- At least partially confirming rumors in ESNUG 506 #4 from 12 months
ago that Synopsys is doing its best to tear down DAC, an anonymous
tipster emailed me a link plus:
"Check Wednesday, June 5th, and look at the speakers at the
event. Is he even attending DAC in Austin this year???"
It linked to the GSA European Executive Forum in Munich, Germany
with Aart de Geus moderating a Wednesday panel there at 3:30 PM!?!
Shortest Austin to Munich flight is United Airlines 3668/906. Leaves
2:48 PM on DAC Tuesday, arrives 9:50 AM Munich for his 3:30 panel; so
at best Aart's only doing DAC Monday and 1/2 of Tuesday. Ouch!
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- FUN QUOTE
"I got the scooooop! I got the scooooop! Nyah! Nyah! Nyah!"
- John Cooley on DeepChip breaking Cadence Tempus
story 73 hours before everyone else did.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- Rumor was for 2 days, somehow the ChipEstimate.com guys had bagged
Texas Governor Rick Perry to actually speak in their DAC booth; but
the rumor has now morphed into instead the Governor is doing a larger
talk in one of the big ballrooms on DAC Wednesday.
Not a rumor, but fact, the mayor of Austin will be ribbon-cutting the
DAC Global Forum -- a weird EDA version of the Disney EPCOT center...
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
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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