I think this one gets some meat.
From YAHOO:
Prospect.
lptg
Jul 27 1998
5:12PM EDT
Let compare Avanti revenues and earnings the last two
quarters: eanings grew from 52 mils to 54 mils and it is
about 4 percent while Cadence grew from 270 mils to
292 mils and it is about 8 percent on a larger revenues
base.
From the revenues growth rate, it is telling us that
Avanti is slowing down compared to Cadence and probably
is losing market share too.
To break down on the growth rate by product category, we
would have a better picture:
- Placement and Route: traditionally biggest growth area,
Avanti is losing market share due to Cadence new products,
litigation and Avanti Aquarius/Apollo is technically
falling behind compared to Cadence Silicon Ensemble. For
the last two years, Avanti did not add any new/breakthrough
improvement to either Apollo/Aquarius product line
except changing to a new database and a new editor which
will not help customers tremendously in terms of productivity
gain. For Cadence Silicon Ensemble, they added a new
and much faster router, a faster placement program,
enhancement for deep submicron design, and much improved
GUI, and tigher links to the front end and timing tools.
According to dataquest, for the next 5 years, place and
route market will experience a strong growth due to
deep submicron designs and system on chip.
- Physical verification: not much improvement in terms
of functionality and performance and R & D turn over.
Stiff competition and appears to lose market share to
Mentor Graphics Calibre product.
- Hspice and anagram: still small market and it seems
like there is not a strong growth area either according
to dataquest.
- Verilog Simulation: cannot compete against VCS from
Synopsis and Verilog XL from Cadence. Have not heard any
sign off status from any major ASIC vendor and the sign
off status is critical for the tool to get widespread
acceptance.
- Libraries product: slow growth area and stiff
competition from Artisan and Aspect Tech. Also, this
business area requires high cost and investment since
library development must adopt to so many different
processes and vendors.
- TCAD product: slow growth area and small market.
Overall, without physical verification and place and
route products growth, I see that Avanti will face a tough time
ahead to grow revenues and earnings, not mentioning
the pending Aquarius injunction. With a Aquarius/Apollo
injunction, Avanti will miss a biggest and most important
link in the deep submicon and System on a chip designs.
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