Strong growth in PCB driven by automotive market; China, Asia continue to be strong markets for tools.
EDA numbers grew 5.7% in the third quarter, propelled by demand for PCB tools in the booming automotive market and IP sales around the globe, according to the latest statistics from the EDA Consortium.
The classic EDA tools business was down slightly for the quarter, but PCB tools jumped 9.7%.
“There are new capabilities for packaging and wiring for automotive,” said Wally Rhines, board sponsor for the EDAC MSS and chairman and CEO of Mentor Graphics. “We’re also seeing very strong growth in China.”
Fig. 1: Third Quarter Revenue By Segment & Geographic Region (in millions)
Source: EDAC
China, Taiwan, and the rest of Asia accounted for about $500 million in Q3, up 11.3% compared with the same period in 2013. In contrast, Japan dropped 15.3% to just $189.5 million. While the electronics industry in Japan is showing some signs of life lately, tools sales inside that country have been slumping since well before the 2008 downturn.
Fig. 2: Q3 Revenue By Segment. Source: EDAC
At one point, Japan used to account for 20% to 25% of all EDA sales, noted Rhines. It now accounts for about half that amount.
Fig. 3: Global Breakdown For Quarter. Source: EDAC
Experts at the Table, part 1: Shrinking features isn’t enough anymore. The big challenge now is how to achieve economies of scale and minimize complex integration issues.
Rising costs and gaps in equipment emerge as technology scales; new tools under development.
Explosion of data is forcing significant changes in where processing is done.
EUV is the clear winner down to 5nm, but what comes after that may be a combination of tools and techniques.
Researchers digging into ways around the von Neumann bottleneck.
Showing that a processor core adheres to a specification becomes more difficult when the specification is extensible.
Optimizing complex chips requires decisions about overall system architecture, and memory is a key variable.
Why data scrubbing and social issues could limit the speed of adoption and the usefulness of this technology.
Wally Rhines, Mentor’s CEO Emeritus, points to big shifts caused by AI, customization, uncertainty in the global economy and a changing customer base.
Smaller features and AI are creating system-level issues, but traditional ways of solving these problems don’t always work.
Manufacturing, packaging and development tools always have earned a fixed percentage of IC revenue, but that could change.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Leave a Reply