Chip IP revenues fall, but overall EDA remains healthy in Q1, says group

Chip IP revenues fall, but overall EDA remains healthy in Q1, says group
By Semiconductor Business News
August 23, 2001 (9:02 a.m. EST)
URL: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20010823S0022

SAN JOSE -- Industry revenues for electronic design automation tools reached $987 million in the first three months of 2001, a 14% increase over Q1 in 2000 but a 6% decline from $1.05 billion in Q4 last year, according to new market data released today by a trade group.

Revenues for semiconductor intellectual property--design cores used to develop ICs--declined 27% in the first quarter to $26 million compared to Q1 of 2000, said the EDA Consortium here. Sequentially, semiconductor IP revenues dropped 11.3% from $29.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2000.

The EDA trade group said IC layout tool revenues were the strongest in design automation software segments, growing 42% on a year-to-year basis to $246 million in Q1 of 2001. This total was a new record high for the first three months of a year, said the group.

The EDA industry's largest category, computer-aided engineering (CAE), generated $469 million in revenues during the Q1 2001, an 8% increase over totals in the quarter last year, according to the consortium. But sequentially, CAE revenues dropped 7.5% from $507 million in Q4 of 2000. The CAE's first-quarter growth was led by formal and functional verification tools, which increased 35% to $35 million over sales in Q1 last year, according to the EDA Consortium.