The Week In Review: Design

M&A

Siemens closed the acquisition of Mentor Graphics, making Mentor now part of Siemens’ product lifecycle management (PLM) software business. The $4.5 billion deal, announced last November, brings Siemens into the IC design tool and embedded software markets and expands Siemens’ multi-physics and electronic simulation capabilities in the growing digital twin space, which ties together virtual models of systems with sensor-reported data. Siemens PLM Software and Mentor are still early in the process of combining the organizations, according to an open letter to customers.

Markets

IC Insights raised its worldwide IC market growth forecast for 2017 to 11%, more than twice its original 5% outlook, based on projected growth in DRAM and NAND flash memory. The market research firm expects DRAM sales to grow 39%, driven almost entirely by a 37% increase in the DRAM average selling price. NAND flash sales are forecast to increase 25% this year.

The ESD Alliance reported that EDA revenue increased 18.9% for Q4 2016 to $2.455 billion, compared to $2.0645 billion in Q4 2015, making it the highest quarterly revenue increase in 5 years. The four-quarters moving average was up by 9.2%. The two fastest growing areas were PCB design and IP, according to Wally Rhines, who said the increase “wasn’t driven, necessarily, by new, leading-edge technology adoption.”

Events

DVCon is coming to China next month, April 19, 2017. The first-year event will include keynotes from Synopsys’ Yong Fu, speaking on the trends and challenges in the current verification landscape, and Mentor’s Wally Rhines, who will review verification evolution over the past several decades and newly emerging problems. The event will be held at the Parkyard Hotel Shanghai. Advanced registration is available until April 7.

Plus, the keynotes and SKY Talks have been announced for this year’s DAC, which will be held June 19 – 22, 2017 in Austin, Texas.

Tools & Education

Synopsys updated its software for the design of photonic devices and components with new general monitor objects to speed simulations of waveguide photodetectors and an updated interface to Synopsys’ Sentaurus TCAD products.

ARM debuted a kit targeted at educators that provides full courseware, including lecture slides with notes, as well as lab manuals with solutions, on developing embedded Linux products using ARM-based single-board computers.

Deals

Ethertone Technologies licensed Arteris’ interconnect IP for use in enterprise storage controllers and networking processors, citing ease-of-use and on-chip data protection features.

Synopsys reported that its IC Validator physical verification product has been successfully used for signoff on more than 100 tapeouts at advanced FinFET nodes with process technologies from multiple foundries at 16nm, 14nm, 10nm and 7nm.