EDA FAIL! TSMC WIN! IBM FAIL! ORACLE WIN!
The Design Automation and Test Conference, one of my favorite boondoggles, was in Nice, France last week. A hand full of exhibitors showed with Atrenta and EVE being the only branded EDA companies in attendance. There were some early stage European EDA companies, it is nice to see that European Venture Capital is still investing in EDA. Do they know something we don’t or do they lag the US VC exodus? The other exhibitors were either EDA sucker fish or EDA lifestyle companies (sole purpose is to support the lifestyle of the CEO). Either way it does not bode well for Euro EDA.
The 16th annual TSMC Technical Symposium was also last week with record attendance, up 20%+ year to year. All of the major EDA and IP companies exhibited: Synopsys, Magma, Cadence, Mentor, ARM and Virage Logic, as well as the fabless ASIC companies. The exhibition space was sold out early with a long waiting list. As I have mentioned to my EDA and IP clients many times over the years, It’s all about the foundry! You have to be one with the foundry!
Overall the TSMC tone was very optimistic, “Collaboration” was the theme, and some interesting factoids were integrated in. TSMC has 74% market share in North America and 62% world wide. 5.7 million wafers were shipped in North America which accounted for 3,468 products. TSMC’s market capitalization is $40B+, TSMC is #5 on the top 20 semiconductor list and IBM is no where to be seen!
Yet IBM fires off a ridiculous press release right before TSMC’s Technical Symposium, just like last year and the year before: IBM ‘fab club’ rolls 28-nm process with high-k with early risk production in second half of 2010. And just like last year TSMC spanked IBM like a semiconductor foundry newborn: TSMC invests in downturn, tips 22-nm with production in the first half of 2010. OH SNAP!
The IBM ‘fab club’ is centered on Chartered Semiconductor as a pure play foundry and the Common Platform Marketing Consortium. Chartered just released more bad news with yet another loss and dwindling cash reserves. My prediction for the semiconductor consolidation play of the year: UMC will buy all or part of Chartered to join the IBM fab club!
Oracle also gave the mighty IBM a big slap last week by acquiring SUN Microsystems for $7.3B cash. Big Blue had first dibs on SUN but played the standard IBM hard ball negotiations game and ended up with big blue balls. Having negotiated with IBM a few times professionally, it is nice to see IBM take one in the shorts!
Having watched SUN grow up, this acquisition is both happy and sad. It is the end of an era for a Silicon Valley icon but another Silicon Valley icon is not a bad home. IBM would have crucified SUN with only Java getting any respect. Oracle can now build a finely tuned Oracle Cloud and compete heads-up with IBM in the lucrative services market. The only question in my mind is MySQL, how is Oracle going to deal with an open source product with 10 million plus installations? Will MySQL become MyOracleLight? Or will the antitrust crowd force Oracle to set MySQL free?
You might want to start by calling DATE (Design Automation and Test in Europe) by its right name – note that it is an acronym. You might also want to take a wider view than the rather obsessive EDA focus on only the exhibitions in “trade shows”. DATE, since its beginnings, has first and foremost been a pretty high quality technical conference. 2009 was no exception and there was a lot to be learned there. Attending the conference centre on some days from an 8:30 start to the 2130 end of some meetings like the European SystemC Users group didn’t exactly seem like a “boondoggle”. I don’t know whether European EDA as a commercial industry has a big future but I do know that design activity and advanced design techniques used in Europe seem to be in pretty good shape.