( ESNUG 538 Item 2 ) -------------------------------------------- [03/28/14]
Subject: Amit on how the MENT-BDA merger disrupts the entire SPICE market
> - SCOOP I: Multiple spies are reporting similar but conflicting
> news. They all agree Berkeley DA "just got"/"is about to get"
> acquired -- but they can't agree on exactly who bought BDA?!
>
> So IF this rumor is true that BDA has been acquired, I give it a
> 50% chance it's Ansys -- but even I don't believe this 50% because
> Ansys seems so indifferent about EDA -- and a 70% chance it's
> Mentor because Greg and Wally really do know EDA.
>
> - from http://www.deepchip.com/items/0537-10.html
From: [ Amit Gupta of Solido Design ]
Hi John,
Congrats on getting the MENT-BDA story a full day before it was official.
 
This acquisition is a *major* move by Wally and Greg -- and it radically
shakes things up in the SPICE market. As a consequence, here's an update
to the SPICE predictions I wrote just last week in ESNUG 537 #7.
BACKGROUND:
Although the exact revenues aren't public, for the last 12 months I believe
Ravi grew BDA to around $15 to $20 million -- and it was (and still is)
growing from the Custom 2.0 Retooling outlined in ESNUG 515 #7.
BDA AFS is commonly used from 45 nm down to 14 nm.
Gary Smith's 2013 Market Trends reports the total worldwide revenue for
analog/mixed-signal/RF/custom EDA tools has reached $776.6 million in 2012,
with a 12% growth in revenue over 2011.
Over the years, we've seen BDA AFS licenses run by our Solido Variation
Designer grow from 4% in 2007 to ~15% in 2014. During this same period,
the MENT Eldo simulator use stayed at ~1%.
Some BDA history:
2001 - BDA founded, initially focusing on PLL noise analysis.
2003 - BDA raised $11.3 M venture capital round from Woodside Fund
and Bessemer Venture Partners
2006 - BDA expanded to general SPICE simulation by introducing
Analog FastSPICE (AFS) for analog/RF and custom digital.
- BDA raised $6 M venture capital adding Panasonic Ventures
2007 - BDA raised $3 M venture capital adding Western Technology
Investment Fund
2013 - BDA launched AFS Mega, their memory simulator.
- Cadence sues BDA for alleged breach of contract over
BDA AFS' integration method to Cadence ADE.
2014 - Cadence and BDA settle lawsuit.
- Mentor acquires BDA.
BDA's customer base is over 100 SPICE customers like: Qualcomm, Samsung,
Broadcom, TSMC, NXP, Panasonic, Fujitsu and Toshiba.
ANALYSIS:
With this BDA acquisition, MENT, who had marginal market share in SPICE and
AM/S, now has over 100 new SPICE customers that they were unable to get to
before. This is a strategic change. This one purchase makes MENT one of
the new major players in the SPICE market.
I expect Wally and Greg will keep their Eldo Classic, Eldo Premier, ADit and
Questa ADMS SPICE simulators as well, for long term customers like Cambridge
Silicon Radio and STMicroelectronics.
Breaking down the SPICE market by sub-market:
- Memory: MENT goes from 1% market share to now having a new
SPICE memory product (BDA AFS Mega) that challenges the SNPS
HSPICE/FineSim/CustomSim memory franchise.
- Standard Cell: unchanged as BDA didn't play in this space.
- Custom Digital: MENT goes from 1% market share to now having
significant market share with BDA AFS to challenge CDNS Spectre.
- Analog/RF: MENT goes from 1% market share to now having
significant market share with BDA AFS to challenge
CDNS Spectre/SpectreRF.
AMIT'S (UPDATED) SPICE PREDICTIONS FOR 2014:
Overall, I expect that the MENT vs. CDNS vs. SNPS competition will heat up
in all 4 of these SPICE sub-markets.
- The MENT BDA AFS/AFS Mega simulators now have two factors that will
help them grow in market share:
- no legal uncertainty now that the CDNS v. BDA lawsuit
is settled,
- BDA is no longer sales & AE limited. BDA will benefit
from MENT's extensive sales reach.
- Agilent will now challenge CDNS/MENT for the RF SPICE market.
- Silvaco will now challenge CDNS/MENT for analog SPICE market.
- The Standard Cell sub-market will remain status quo.
Fairly soon, I expect the entire MENT custom IC tool offering will grow as
the major semiconductor companies start to see MENT as a serious custom EDA
player -- and as a viable alternative tool supplier to CDNS and SNPS.
My experiences with Ravi Subramanian (CEO of BDA) is that he's a respected
aggressive go-getter who will give Lip-Bu and Aart a serious run for their
money in the SPICE and custom markets. It was brilliant of Wally and Greg
to pick him up.
- Amit Gupta
Solido DA Saskatoon, Canada
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
Related Articles
Amit's post-CDNS-vs.-BDA-lawsuit SPICE trends/predictions for 2014
Join
Index
Next->Item
|
|
