Will Googles of the World Be Cadence's Best Bet?

Ever-expanding definition of systems design
Susan Rambo, EETimes
3/13/2014 05:10 PM EDT

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Low-power, security, cloud, and IoT were the looming themes in Cadence CEO Lip-Bu Tan’s keynote at CDNLive, Cadence Design Systems’ user conference for IC designers on Tuesday, March 11. Cadence was selling an expanded view of what systems design means on the ecosystem level: From IC and IP to SoC and PCB, it's all part of an enlarging ecosystem.

Over the past year, Cadence has been on an IP acquisition spree, which included Tensilica, Forte Design Systems, and TranSwitch. But as EE Times reported in 2013, Cadence’s competition had also started amassing IP.

Reminding the audience frequently of his background as a venture capitalist, Tan made a point to say he attended Mobile World Congress and CES to check out end products. Understanding the final consumer products is part of the system-wide approach.

Cadence is focusing on system companies. “The Googles, Apples, Amazon are buying more from us than the chip companies,” a company spokesperson told EE Times. “The only one absent right now is Facebook.”

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