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

IC Layout Market 5-3
During the past three years, the increasing time-to-market pressure has
caused semiconductor companies to re-evaluate their design process.
The success of chip-set companies has been based on applying an
ASIC design methodology to custom devices. Therefore it is not surprising
that fueling the IC layout growth has been ASIC methodology
design tools, primarily automatic placement and routing.
Automatic Placement and Routing
Automatic placement and routing tools fueled IC layout growth in
1991, posting growth rates of 32 percent and 23 percent for gate-array
and cell-based technologies, respectively. This trend is driven by chipset
and more traditional semiconductor houses adopting ASIC design
techniques.
Gate-array and cell-based placement and routing tools continue to
gain ground on more traditional IC layout tools, APR now accounts
for 29 percent of the IC layout market, and Dataquest anticipates that
this trend will continue for the next three to five years.
Design Verification
Contributing $59 million to the IC layout market, design verification
was essentially flat between 1990 and 1991. This is primarily due to
the one-sided nature of this applicatiort Cadence continues to
dominate this area with its Dracula product. While Mentor Graphics
has been aggressively marketing its Checkmate product, it has been
slow to gamer a large segment of the market. Cadence will continue
to service its existing customers, but as a market, design verification
will continue to remain flat until new technology is brought to bear
on the problem.
Module Generators and Compilers
Module generators continue a disappointing performance, showing
no growth between 1990 and 1991 posting only $12 million in 1991,
versus $13 million in 1990. It has been an uphiU battle for EDA
companies to establish a need within the designer's mind for this type
of product. Cadence, which enjoys IC layout dominance, has been surprisingly
ineffective in providing a successful product in this arena,
which continues to be Mentor Graphics' strength with its GDT
product.
Cell compilers languish with its module generation brethren, posting
an essentially flat 1991 at $14 million. Dataquest anticipated that this
market would continue to remain flat for the foreseeable future in
1991. Third-party suppliers of cell compilers find it difficult to work
vrith ASIC companies that have typically bundled their proprietary
cell compilers with their libraries.
Shipments
The year 1991 saw Asia becoming the largest consumer of IC layout
tools by a wide margin (see Figure 5-3 and Table 5-1). This
shoiild come as no surprise to those working in the semiconductor
CCAM-EDA-MT-9201 ©1992 Dataquest Incorporated October 12, 1992