EDA Graffiti

Kevin Morris does a great job of dissecting the DAC attendance numbers. Since he has his FPGA hat on while doing this, one of the points he emphasizes is that most people doing electronic design are doing FPGA+software systems and so, largely, are not targeted by DAC, which is almost completely focused on IC design in leading-edge process nodes. As we all know, and as I’ve discussed several times, the number of design starts and the speed of migration to new processes are both going in the wrong direction and means that EDA as currently defined is a market in genteel decline.

The EDA industry has failed to expand into the FPGA space or the embedded software space in an effective way, which are the obvious areas for growth. Yes, both Mentor and Synopsys have FPGA synthesis, but it’s neither a significant part of their overall business nor is it small but growing explosively.

But I think Kevin gets some things wrong in his analysis. The technical conference attendees are not the “hard-core customers of the EDA industry.” They are academics salted with some EDA development engineers and, perhaps, a few customers. DAC is really two almost independent events: a technical conference attended by technical people who don’t themselves buy EDA tools; and a trade-show attended by people who buy or use EDA tools but aren’t that interested in all the stuff under the hood. There’s obviously bleed through so this is an exaggeration especially as more business sessions have been added.

The hard-core customers of the EDA industry, in my experience, typically have exhibit only badges. They don’t come to attend the technical conference, apart perhaps for some keynotes. They come to see what is new in the industry, get a feel for trends, see if there are any new startups they should know about but don’t and to network with people that they really only see once a year at DAC.

I’m reminded of a story a purchasing guy at VLSI told me years ago. He was responsible for purchasing semiconductor equipment to outfit VLSI’s fab. These are multi-million dollar pieces of equipment. He got invited to a party given by one of the vendors. There were about 50 people there, the party was abuzz, there were lots of cute women being very friendly. Gradually he realized that everyone there except him was actually connected to the vendor. The entire party was put on for him.

Obviously DAC is not put on for one person. But the reality is that there are at most a few hundred key decision makers in the semiconductor companies, and only dozens who control big budgets. As long as those few people show up then DAC can be successful for the exhibiting companies, especially the startups who struggle for visibility. Admittedly this year, Japan and Europe sent far fewer people than usual so some of those people really weren’t there this year. But I think that really is due to the economic downturn meaning that semiconductor companies are very tight with discretionary expense spending.

Next year DAC is in Anaheim again. Attendance will probably be down. But if the guys who control the $5B in EDA spending show up, then the exhibitors will be happy. And that is true whether or not a bunch of junior engineers also show up, so you can’t read as much as you think into the attendance numbers.