EDA, IP Revenues Up Again

EDA and IP revenues were up across the board yet again, buoyed by growth across a number of new markets and an increase in new and existing companies developing chips for those markets.

All told, revenue grew to $2.39 billion in Q2 of 2018, an 8.2% increase over the $2.21 billion reported in the same period in 2017, according to numbers released today by the ESD Alliance’s Market Statistics Service (MSS).

“A couple of things really stand out,” said Wally Rhines, president and CEO of Mentor, a Siemens Business, and board sponsor for the MSS. “The PCB/MCM growth is remarkable. In North America, we saw big growth on the system side.”

PCB and multi-chip module revenue was $231.5 million, an 18.5% increase compared with Q2 of 2017. CAE revenue was $819.9 million, up 21% compared with the same period in 2017. IC physical design and verification increased 7.5% to $466.9 million.

In the Americas, EDA revenue was $1.098 billion, up 11% over the comparable period in 2017. In Europe and the Middle East, revenue increased 13% to $355.7 million. In Asia/Pacific, revenue decreased 0.1% to $691 million, but this was due partly to the impact of revised accounting standards. And in Japan, Q2 revenue increased 13.2% to $245.4 million.

Fig. 1: Q2 revenue by segment and region, in $ millions. Non-reporting SIP company revenues are down due to accounting changes. Source: ESD Alliance MSS

“The numbers show new activity for established companies and semiconductor startups,” Rhines said. “They all need tools. In automotive electronics, there are about 350 electric car company disclosures of plans to introduce cars and light trucks. So there will be a sustained period of design, and you’re seeing evidence of design activity particularly in AI and automotive.”

Services revenue, meanwhile, dropped 5.4% to $103 million, a reflection of strong hiring among companies. The number of employees in the EDA and IP industries increased 9% to 41,706, up from 38,265 in Q2 2017.

Fig. 2: Quarterly EDA, SIP and services revenue, by region, Q1 1996 – Q2 2018. Source: ESD Alliance MSS