EDA industry reports another quarter of shrinking sales

EDA industry revenues have declined for three consecutive quarters, and were down 5.1 percent in the first nine months of 2002, according to the Electronic Design Automation Consortium (EDAC).

According to EDAC’s latest market statistics survey, revenues of $964 million for the third quarter of 2002 were down 2.3 percent from $987 million in the year-ago quarter. Consulting services had the greatest negative impact on revenues, declining 41.2 percent, and other services declined 3.1 percent. But product and renewal revenues actually increased 1.8 percent.

“I think the numbers are somewhat encouraging,” said Walden Rhines, chairman and CEO of Mentor Graphics Corp., and chairman of EDAC, an industry association. “Product plus maintenance was in positive growth but the total revenue number was down. In Q2, product plus maintenance was negative and the positive growth in this area in Q3 has now made product plus maintenance, EDA’s largest sector, positive.”

Rhines said the 1.8 percent increase in product revenues may signal that Q2 was the bottom of the downturn and that total revenues will begin to climb.

Bright spots in the latest EDAC survey came from the IC physical design and verification segment, which posted $324 million in revenues during Q3, up 6 percent from Q3 of 2001. Semiconductor intellectual property (IP) revenues also grew 6 percent in Q3, to $32 million. But that growth figure was skewed by Synopsys Inc.’s purchase of IP provider InSilicon Corp., which had not previously provided its revenue figures to the EDAC report.

The EDA industry’s largest single segment, for computer-aided engineering, posted revenues of $464 million in Q3, down slightly from $467 million a year ago. Printed-circuit board and multichip module layout revenues totaled $84 million, compared with $85 million in the same period last year. EDA services revenue was $61 million in the third quarter, down 39 percent from 2001’s third quarter.

By region, the North American market purchased $555 million of EDA products and services in Q3, up 4 percent from the same period a year ago. Revenues from Japan increased to $156 million, marking that region’s first positive revenue growth in six quarters, EDAC said. The rest-of-the-world continued its string of growth and led all regions with a 16 percent increase in revenues, to $86 million.

EDA employment also declined slightly in Q3 to 18,600, from 18,800 in Q2 of 2002, the report said.

– Michael Santarini

EE Times