CAD/CAM/CAE : electronic design automation, 1992 - Archive Server

into large orders or have been purchased for
evaluation and curiosity reasons. A significant
number of these licenses have never been used.
As indicated in the above analysis, we expect
this to change as the use of these kinds of analysis
tools becomes mandatory in many organizations.
Figure 2 shows the market growing to
$27 million by 1996, representing a compovind
annvial growtii rate of 31 percent.
Dataquest Perspective
The PCB thermal market is relatively small in
relation to the overall EDA market, but we
anticipate that it will exhibit growth well above
the EDA average throughout the next several
years.
We believe that the PCB thermal market wiU
increasingly be dominated by the broad-line
EDA vendors, which own the EDA customer
bases and are best positioned to integrate their
own thermal products into their EDif\ tools. This
is therefore a very difficult market for new
specialized thertnal companies to compete in—
tmless their products offer unique advantages
such as ease of use, accuracy, utility, or integration
with systems-level thermal products.
Figure 2
PCB Thermal Market Forecast Software Revenue
Source: Dataquest (August 1992)
CAD/CAM/CAE—Electronic Design Automation Applications
Considered individually, thermal analysis may
continue to be unprofitable for larger EDA vendors.
This may be unacceptable to highly divisionahzed
or low-profit companies, which may
iiltimately off-load product development and
second-line support to specialized third-party
companies, preferring to sell the products on an
OEM basis. The EDA vendor will then assist
these companies through framework initiatives.
We believe that opportunities do exist for EDA
companies, but the decision depends on the
importance of a thermal analysis capability to
the strategic direction of the individual company.
This raises another question: Why should an
EDA company view thermal analysis as being
more or less strategic than any ottier analysis
tool? A possible answer is that thermal analysis
tools, tmiquely, have many possible users
throughout the organization. They could therefore
open the door into other departments and
functions. A more tactical reason is that a company
with a large PCB layout and CAE customer
base could sell a considerable number of
thermal analysis licenses into that base—if the
product adequately meets users' needs and if
the EDA vendor can overcome the barrier of
oiganizational politics.
By Jim Tully
Gaooosse
August 31,1992 ©1992 Dataquest Incorporated CCAM-EDA-DP-9202