( ESNUG 550 Item 4 ) -------------------------------------------- [05/15/15]
Subject: TSMC, Samsung, Gear, Joules, Nitro, ARM, Ausdia, Tanner, eSilicon
PRE-DAC FRENZY: Here's the latest news & rumors I've heard about EDA and the
fabs in the build-up before DAC'15. Feel free to comment/correct/scold!
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- COMPETITION IS COMING!: Last month TSMC shocked Wall Street with
its Q1 2015 earning call, which Reuters boiled down to:
- TSMC has lost a big unnamed "key customer"
- TSMC has cut its CapEx spending by $1 billion
- TSMC expects a "7% to 8% Q-over-Q decline" in Q2 2015
Speculation is it was the Samsung Exynos CPU (made in Samsung fabs)
replacing an overheated Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 (made in TSMC fabs);
or that this TSMC key customer loss was in Apple A9 orders:
"Samsung will start making Apple A9 processor chips at its
Giheung plant in South Korea, the people said, asking not
to be identified because the contract hasn't been discussed
publicly. Additional orders will go to Samsung's partner
GlobalFoundries, according to another person familiar
with the arrangement."
- Jungah Lee of Bloomberg Business (04/02/15)
"While Apple had hoped to rely more heavily on TSMC to fab the
Ax family of processors used in its iOS devices, the company
has turned to Samsung for its next-generation A9 chip,
according to people with knowledge of the situation."
- Dawn Chmielewski of Recode.net (02/04/15)
Either way, the analysts' reactions have been brutal. EE Times cites:
"TSMC's monopoly on leading edge has been broken thanks to
Samsung's successful ramp of 14nm with current yields
exceeding 70%. Samsung has effectively become as good as
TSMC at 14nm while offering a much lower ASP per wafer."
- Mehdi Hosseini of Susquehanna (EET 04/21/15)
"For the first time, TSMC may have put its 28nm capacity
build on hold given a more tangible threat from other
foundry houses such as UMC, GlobalFoundries, and SMIC."
- Szeho Ng of BNP Paribas (EET 04/21/15)
Other pubs see Qualcomm/Marvell/Nvidia/MediaTek jumping ship, too:
"Stories in recent days suggest that not only will Qualcomm
use Samsung for its upcoming 820, but a host of additional
companies -- among them Marvel, MediaTek, and Nvidia -- will
decamp en masse for the Korean manufacturer."
- Joel Hruska of ExtremeTech (04/22/15)
"Breaking from past practice, Qualcomm plans to have its
next-generation Snapdragon 820 processor manufactured at
Samsung's chip-making plants, according to sources familiar
with Qualcomm's roadmap and Samsung's foundry operations."
- Ina Fried of Recode.net (04/20/15)
So although TSMC's PR machine will spin this as a temporary financial
setback "due to global market conditions", this could also be the
tipping point where Samsung brings real price competition back into
the fab business. After all the title of the EE Times article was
"Samsung Busts TSMC's 'Monopoly' Analysts Say".
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- SCOOP! - Word is in addition to Cadence Voltus, Ansys Apache RedHawk
now has a new IR-drop and electromigration competitor from a John Lee
start-up called Gear Design Solutions.
John Lee is a big name in DFM. He created Mojave Quartz DRC/LVS which
gave MENT Calibre major headaches back in 2006. (See ELSE'06 #18).
"Big Data techniques for IR-drop/EM!" is Gear's new claim to fame.
I've heard conflicting rumors that Gear either 100% won or 100% failed
in a recent RedHawk/Voltus/Gear benchmark at Broadcom.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- WEIRD SCOOP - Sources say in the emulator/prototyping wars that Cadence
is launching a new RTL power optimizer called "Joules", which is hooked
into their Palladium boxes. The idea is with all those extra Palladium
emulation cycles, "Joules" can generate a hell of a lot more (100x)
power vectors than any SW simulator or SW tool ever could.
Synopsys EVE Zebu can't do this because of visibility problems. And I
have heard Mentor is also doing something in the emulator-RTL-power
space with a new tool called "Veloce PA", but I don't know any details.
What's weird is emulation now impacts the olde Apache PowerArtist vs.
Atrenta Spyglass Power vs. Calypto RTL PowerPro wars from DAC'12! Huh?
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- ICC2 SCOOP: Sources say that for the last 18 months MENT's Sierra group
has had an R&D initiative called "Project Nitro" to directly counter
Aart's big IC Compiler 2 push -- just like how CDNS "Project Novus" did.
Apparently this "new" Olympus-SoC PnR will have a new placer that does
concurrent clock-data tuning, and a new optimizer that can supposedly
do 100 MCMM corners -- a lot!-- and a new abutted floorplanner, too.
I also hear that they're trying to pass off Oasys RTL synthesis as new,
but I'm not believing that. :)
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- MONEY CAN BUY YOU LOVE: Remember last year how Wall St. bashed ARMH?
- 01/09/2014 Goldman Sacks downgrades ARM shares - WSJ
- 01/09/2014 Deutsche Bank downgrades ARM shares - WSJ
- 01/24/2014 Can ARMH sustain growth in 2014? - SeekingAlpa
- 02/04/2014 Slower smartphone growth hits ARMH - CNN.com
- 02/04/2014 ARM drops 9%, triggers short-sales - MarketWatch
- 04/07/2014 ARM Holdings stock is overvalued - SeekingAlpa
- 04/11/2014 ARM retreats 4.5% to 958.5 pence - Bloomberg
- 04/23/2014 ARM royalty growth slows to a crawl - Fool.com
- 04/23/2014 ARM Holdings hits a speed bump - SeekingAlpha
It's amazing what 12 short months (and two good quarters) can do!
- 01/21/2015 Citigroup upgrades ARMH to buy - Morningstar
- 02/11/2015 ARM Holdings price target rises - Barrons
- 02/12/2015 Apple builds muscle for ARM Holdings - WSJ
- 02/17/2015 Goldman maintains ARMH conviction buy - Fool
- 02/23/2015 Canaccord raises ARMH target to $60 - Insider
- 02/23/2015 ARM royalties growth prompts rise - IBD
- 02/25/2015 ARM takes business beyond phones - WSJ
- 04/21/2015 ARMH rises on Q1 earnings beat - Bloomberg
- 05/14/2015 Bernstein upgrades ARM Holdings - Barrons
- 05/07/2015 Zacks ranks ARMH as Rank #2 (Buy) - Zacks
And it's no secret to Simon Segars, the CEO of ARM, that all those
Wall St. people only love you when you have money...
... but it must be somewhat "entertaining" for Simon to sit across
from Aart de Geus at the EDAC board meetings when Aart is trying to
use Designware ARC cores to take away his ARM sales. Heck, Aart's
ARC folks just launched embARC.org -- a SNPS web site to promote
"open" SW for the 190 companies making 1.5 billion ARC products
that directly compete against ARM. "With friends like Aart..."
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- SPEAKING OF EDAC: After giving 19 years to EDAC, Bob Gardner has now
stepped down as its director and treasuer. Prior to EDAC, Gardner had
extensive EDA experience at Exemplar, Bridges2Silicon, AMD, and Avnet.
"I'm taking a break from 19 years of committees. It's my turn to cash
in instead," said Gardner. "I'm on two boards and plan to expand that."
Replacing him is Bob Smith formerly of Uniquify, Magma, Synopsys, and
LogicVision. "Being ex-Magma, I'm not used to being at EDAC meetings,"
said Smith. "I've never been the guy who had to herd the cats before."
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- FUNNIEST SCOOP: Today's the deadline for the Cheesy Forms -- it's where
the EDA vendors tell me what they're showing at the upcoming DAC's so
I can add them to my Cheesy Must See List for DAC. I broke out laughing
at what the Atoptech folks sent in:
"10X reduction in runtime? Do you believe in unicorns, too?"
Talk about balls! While remaining 100% polite and civil -- and without
naming Aart at all -- ATOP has their entire DAC booth taking a direct
swipe at Aart's IC Compiler 2 10X speed-up claims. (Aart has had his
attack lawyers suing ATOP for 24 months now. This is the ATOP guys
giving Aart a very defiant public yet discreet F.U.) Funny!
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- STRANGE BEDFELLOWS: You know how I broke the rumor on Cinco de Mayo that
it looks like SNPS was going to buy Atrenta for a $150+ bid?
Rumor is that it's not the usual EDA suspects bidding on Atrenta. That
is, Cadence and Mentor are NOT bidding to buy Atrenta at all -- instead
this is a Dassault vs. Synopsys bidding war. (Yes, Dassault!)
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- GETTING SERIOUS: I've also just noticed that Sam Appleton, CEO of Ausdia
has somehow convinced Keith Mueller to join Ausdia's board. Wow.
Keith is a well known heavy hitter who helped Silicon Perspectives get
acquired by Cadence for $130 million -- you know -- First Encounter.
Then Keith took Apache from $0 and after 14 quarters acquired for $315
million. Then Keith was at Tuscany for 3 years before being bought by
Dassault. Any 9 year EDA start-up getting Keith is big. Wow.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- LIFE OR DEATH?: A little over 2 months ago, MENT annouced that it bought
Tanner EDA. The untold story is John Tanner had a $28 million company
that was $20 million in consulting and $8 million in "very inexpensive"
quickie AMS design/layout/verification tools. My spies tell me MENT
bought the tools part for $14 million -- but MENT did not buy the Tanner
consulting group at all.
Now the big question is: "Did MENT buy Tanner tools just to scavenge the
Tanner SW for bits to use in Pyxis, IC Station, and BDA projects?" or
"Will MENT keep running Tanner EDA as is now -- selling "inexpensive"
download-from-the-web AMS tools to cheap large node chip designers?"
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- THE IRON LADY STILL RULES!: In the IP portal game, while ChipEstimate
is EOLing its InCyte chip estimator, it appears that Jack Harding's
attempt to have his eSilcon.com IP MarketPlace portal snap up the
IP market so far is not getting all that much user traction.
That is, from people I've talked to Gabriele Saucier, the Iron Lady
of IP, still seems to be the Big Daddy in IP sales with her long
established Design-Reuse.com website. (Why Jack Harding would go up
against such an entrenched foe like that is anyone's guess.)
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
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
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
Related Articles:
Shootout at DAC'12: PowerArtist vs. Spyglass Power vs. PowerPro
Industry Gadfly -- A brief history of Apache and its IPO
Aart's SUE RIVALS policy backfires horribly on core SNPS patents
Join
Index
Next->Item
|
|
