By Anne-Francoise Pele

2009 was quite a tumultuous year for the EDA industry. However, there are signs that there is some economic light at the end of the tunnel. Revenue improved on a sequential basis in the third quarter of 2009, ending the longest string of successive declines since at least 1997, according to the EDA Consortium (EDAC) trade group.

EDA revenue for the third quarter of last year totaled nearly $1.17 billion, up 3.8 percent compared to the second quarter of the year, according to EDAC's latest report. But revenue continued to decline on a year-to-year basis, down 7.2 percent compared to the third quarter of 2008. EDAC's four-quarter moving average also declined 13.1 percent.

EE Times / EDA DesignLine presents a discussion with EDA pundits Walden Rhines, EDAC chair and chairman and CEO of Mentor Graphics Corp., Gary Smith, principal of Gary Smith EDA, and Joseph Borel, former executive vice president in central research and development at STMicroelectronics NV and now of the JB-R&D consulting company.

By Anne-Francoise Pele

While the economy is expected to come back in 2010, it won't come roaring back.

According to IDC's latest report, the worldwide semiconductor market will increase by 11 percent year-over-year, to $218.6 billion, in 2010. The growth will be stimulated by the increase in the number of smartphone and PC shipments.

The EDA industry is another story.

In 2009, most EDA vendor revenues were flat or declining, and profitability dropped. Looking at 2010, the EDA market will possibly take a few more quarters to recover as its growth generally lags behind that of the semiconductor industry.

By Anne-Francoise Pele

At least, I was.

Everyone in the profession knows about this Grenoble-based technical conference, focused on intellectual property (IP) based system-on-chip (SoC) design.

Hesitation and confusion arose after the conference name changed from IP-SoC 2006 to IP07 and, eventually, to IP-ESC 2009.

Three names in four years.

Why is that?