Semiconductor IP Companies Still in Play

By _Daniel Nenni

July 2, 2009

A recent EETimes article about memory IP vendors reminded me to follow up on my blogs about IP companies, which I believe are the best investments in semiconductor design today. It is a fluff piece, Mark LaPedus briefly mentions ARM, Synopsys, Virage Logic, and Denali, but his analysis is right on the mark. There is definitely money to be made in the semiconductor design enablement market, on companies with scalable (gain share) business models of course.

ARM has alienated the semiconductor foundries due to aggressive and sometimes questionable business practices. If and when there is a comparable product available, ARM will lose out, due to their arrogance more often than not. Intel is aggressively targeting the embedded processor business so I’m long term short on ARM. As I mentioned in “Wall Street Hates EDA” Synopsys  is giving away IP, stifling innovation, and is treating the Semi IP market like a cat does a sandbox.