The Week In Review: July 31
The talk of the design industry this week was Magma Design Automation’s future, as detailed in the company’s SEC filing on Monday:
“Our independent public accounting firm has issued an opinion on our consolidated financial statements for the fiscal year ended May 3, 2009 that states that the consolidated financial statements were prepared assuming we will continue as a going concern and further states that our recurring losses from operations, stockholders’ deficit and inability to generate sufficient cash flow to meet our obligations and sustain our operations raise substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern…Our future is dependent on our ability to execute our plans successfully or otherwise address these matters. If we fail to do so for any reason, we would not be able to continue as a going concern and could potentially be forced to seek relief through a filing under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.”
At least some investors think there’s some life left in the company, though. Its stock was higher all week than immediately after the announcement.
On a more positive note, Virage Logic ’s sales were higher in the second quarter than in the first. License revenues were up 18% even though royalties were down in direct correlation with wafer shipments. But tapeouts are on the rise even if chips aren’t being produced yet, a positive sign of things to come. The company also introduced volume-production proven SiPro PCI Express PHY IP stemming from its relationship with AMD.
Synopsys rolled out Galaxy 2009 with twice the design implementation and signoff throughput, along with multicore and multi-corner/multi-mode technology. It was the second Galaxy announcement in less than a week.
Synopsys also joined forces with the Common Platform folks at Chartered , IBM and Samsung as well as ARM to collaborate on ways to deliver a low-power processor architecture, integrated design flow and system-level IP on the Common Platform’s 32/28nm process.
Cadence claimed first-silicon results on the Common Platform’s 32nm process. That was the good news. The bad news came in the form of financial results, showing a loss of $74 million in Q2. Revenue was $210 million. But things are looking significantly better for Q3, narrowing the loss to no more than a penny a share.
Mentor jumped into the Google Android and embedded Linux market in a big way, snapping up a small developer—Embedded Alley —and inking deals in preparation of what many believe will be an explosive growth market.
In the foundry world, the machinery is beginning to churn again. TSMC ’s Q2 is still lower than the same period in 2008, but it’s 88% higher than in Q1. Net income is up 1,468%. And yes, you did read that correctly. Charterered Semi ’s revenue, meanwhile, was up 43 percent over Q1. The company still posted a net loss of $39 million , but it said that was a substantial improvement over Q1.
Tags: Cadence, chartered, IBM, Mentor Graphics, Samsung, Synopsys, TSMC, Virage Logic