Design Automation
complex. From a market perspective, many into account mechanical aspects along with
segments propelled this growth. It would be electronics, enabling OEMs and EMS companies
noteworthy to look at a few of them. to quickly launch a product in the market.
A few trends (from 1997) that have fuelled Managing complexity of designs and the
industry growth: corresponding economy of scale to realize a
ring6 Internet users rose from 205 M to design are increasingly becoming important.
approximately 2 B Semiconductor industry leaders are
ring6 Number of mobile users grew from forecasting that the market will reach $1 Trillion
57 Mi to over 3.5 B by 2017 from the current levels of $270 B. The
Issue VIII 2009
leaders are betting on such a target assuming
square4
ring6 Digital cameras from none to over 18 B
ring6 MP3 players from none to more than 6 B certain disruptive technologies and ‘waves’ will
.com
emerge, beyond CMOS. The whole industry will
From an engineering perspective, designs have to rally around to make this dream come
and teams are increasingly becoming global. true!
These teams are spread across continents, in-
order to efficiently handle complexities at Current State of the EDA Industry
optimized costs, utilizing the best resources The current financial turmoil, coinciding with the
available. This globalization will be a major usual semiconductor downturn cycle and the
oasiasemiconductor
driving factor for the industry in the coming recessionary trend seen globally has taken a
.eur
few years. toll on the EDA Industry too. Though
www
Standardization and programmability are the previous year results were
significantly impacting the development of reasonably good for the EDA
31
various electronic products. Increasing segment, growth has
deployment of multi-core platforms for any remained a larger issue. All
product design – usage of 32 cores and beyond, the big companies are facing
extending to 128 will become common. This challenges. Cadence is a
trend will mainly be driven by the end users classic example, though
who want all kinds of fancy features to be problems are not just limited
incorporated in a product irrespective of to it. It is now being
whether they use them or not! There is also a governed by a
growing trend towards programmable platforms.
In addition, product life cycles are becoming
shorter ever, demanding new product launches
every 6 to 9 months. There is no way a company
can bring out a new product to keep themselves
alive unless they adopt programmable solutions
that allow customizations and differentiation.
This swing towards standardization and
programmability could be attributed as one of
the reasons for the shrinking new design starts.
Product development approaches are
undergoing significant changes too. Product
designers are forced to look at all aspects –
including aesthetics. Designers will have to take
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