The Week In Review: July 23
By Ed Sperling
Mentor Graphics filed an import suspension application against Eve in Japan, one of the biggest markets for emulation, on the basis of patent infringement. Eve is one of Mentor’s biggest competitors in that market, too.
The Synopsys acquisition of Virage Logic moved one step closer to reality this week when the 30-day waiting period expired. Under the terms of the deal, Synopsys will pay $12 a share for Virage common stock. Considering that Virage’s stock was hovering around $5.50 at the beginning of the year, that’s a big bump. The stock has been on a steady rise up to agreed upon share price since then.
The deal will be particularly interesting for Synopsys in light of Virage Logic’s agreement with SMIC to extend its partnership to the 40nm low leakage process technology. For anyone who thought the Chinese foundries were trailing well behind Taiwan and the GlobalFoundries, think again.
ARM struck up a bunch of deals with EDA companies and foundries this week. The deal with Cadence calls for an ARM-optimized system-realization solution that includes an end-to-end flow, interoperable tools, and ARMs’ processor, physical IP, services and methodology from embedded Linux to GDSII. ARM also struck a long-term agreement with TSMC to provide its processors and physical IP down to 20nm.
Cadence also struck several deals with Fujitsu, one for a standardized die model that provides a comprehensive chip-package-board co-design solution, , one for chip planning technology, and one for the Cadence Encounter Conformal ECO designer.
Tags: ARM, Cadence, Fujitsu, GlobalFoundries, Mentor Graphics, Synopsys, TSMC, Virage Logic