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

CAD/CAM/CAE—Electronic Design Automation Applications
V\^th many companies in the EDA industry
now prepared to ship simulation products that
have cleared some or aU of the above hurdles,
the simulation market is ready to expand. Our
research confirms that the need for additional
simulation licenses is pervasive throughout the
electronic design market. The market is indicating
that it needs to increase the nunJber of
licenses currently in place by approximately
20 percent. Our preliminary estimates show
that the total installed base of merchant simulator
licenses is approximately 50,000 licenses
(approximately two to three percent are estimated
to be mttltiuser licenses). Thus, over the
next 12 to 24 months, the market will expand
by approximately 10,000 licenses, equating to a
market opportunity of $175 to $200 million for
additional licenses.
There is also an emerging simulator replacement
opportimity. We estimate that approximately
75 percent of the licenses installed in
the market are non-HDL-based simulation
licenses (approximately 40,000 licenses). The
market for non-HDL simulators is declining
precipitously in the face of the trend toward
top-down design. Electronics manufacturers
are lookuig to replace these licenses with
HDL-based mixed-level simulation products.
We expect the replacement process to occur
over the next three to five years. We believe
that the retirement rate of these licenses wiU
range from a low of 4,000 licenses in 1992 to
a high of 13,000 in 1994.
Our preliminary estimates indicate that the
HDL-based mixed-level simulation market
reached approximately $70 million in 1991, up
J&om approximately $50 million in 1990 and
$29 million in 1989. The market should reach
$90 to $100 million this year. Our forecasts
also indicate strong growth in the architectural-level
simulation market. Verification tools
in this category are those that will enable the
user to simulate and verify designs at a
higher level than that which has been traditionally
available (for example, tools that allow
a computer designer to determine the optimal
number of processors and cache size for a
multiprocessor design, given a fixed bus bandwidth).
Other tools in this category would
include those supporting formal verification.
Dataquest Perspective
It is clear that as the top-down design methodology
makes increasing penetration into the mainstream
design market, a ntunber of fundamental
shifts wiU occur in the market. These include
increasing use of mixed-level, HDL-based simulators,
greater use of logic synthesis, and the
adoption of policies regarding the reuse of
previous-generation designs. Dataquest believes
that there is still an opportunity to capitalize on
the growth of the top-down design market, but
as more competitors enter the fray, average selling
prices will experience a precipitous decline.
Thus, the goal for EDA vendors shovild be to
search out those emerging areas that have yet to
be addressed by the myriad of players chasing
the top-down design market.
By Ron Collett
CCAM-EDA-DP-9202 ©1992 Dataquest Incoiporated July 27,1992