By Ed Sperling
Cadence unveiled the latest installment of its EDA360 initiative, this one focused on a holistic approach to silicon realization that incorporates unified design intent, abstraction and convergence.

eSilicon took a step in a different direction, offering content-addressable memory cores and compilers for network hardware and Web servers. It looks as if another company has entered the IP business. Interesting move.

Carl Zeiss and Synopsys are collaborating on in-die registration metrology for photomask manufacturing. Zeiss makes some of the finest—and priciest—optics on the planet, including a $133,000 camera lens kit. Make sure you stick around for the door prize.

Synopsys also won a deal with Himax Technologies of Taiwan, which makes chips for flat panel displays. Himax will standardize on Synopsys’ implementation, verification and IP.

Atrenta signed a multi-year collaboration agreement with CEA-Leti, one of the companies involved in the massive European particle accelerator. Yet another interesting move for the week.

MIPS won a deal with Microchip for its M14K cores and another with Cavium, which licensed the MIPS architecture.

Mentor Graphics introduced FloTherm software for thermal analysis in the 3D computational fluid dynamics market. What’s interesting here is how some of the technology developed in EDA is being applied outside. In this case, it’s being used to reduce PCB design respins.

On the financial front, Cadence posted much better results in Q3, with revenue of $238 million and net income of $127 million. If that sounds too good to be true, it’s largely the result of a $148 million one-time tax benefit. But given that the company lost $14 million in the same period in 2009, no one is complaining. Cadence anticipates revenue next quarter will be $230 million to $240 million, with a loss of four cents to six cents per share.

Also on the numbers side, ARM reported its Q3 numbers. Revenue was $158.1 million vs. $123 million in the same period in 2009. Net cash was $65 million, vs. $28.3 million in 2009. Nice job.

MIPS likewise turned in a strong quarter with revenue up 50% year over year to $22.5 million. Net income was $7.6 million, which is about $7 million higher than the same period last year. Break out the champagne.

TSMC revenue grew 24.8% in Q3 and net income increased 53.6%. The company expects demand in communication-related applications to grow in Q4 while computer- and consumer-related revenue will decline.

And on a completely unrelated topic that captivated much of Silicon Valley this week: GO GIANTS!

Tags: ARM, Atrenta, Cadence, eSilicon, Mentor Graphics, MIPS, Synopsys, TSMC

This entry was posted on Friday, October 29th, 2010 at 7:26 am and is filed under News Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.