Introduction:
After devoting the first two issues of EDA Weekly under this writer’s byline to “The Role of Business Planning” in high tech on November 9, 2009, and to the “MAD Progress” at the Mentor Graphics Mechanical Analysis Division (MAD) on December 7, 2009, it seemed only natural for the next article that we’d tackle something completely different in the world of EDA.
Accordingly, on November 8, 2009 an appointment with Virage Logic Corporation of Fremont CA was set up for early December 2009. For this meeting, I “traveled” on a cold but spectacular sunny morning from Albany CA to Virage Logic’s corporate HQ at 47100 Bayside Parkway, Fremont, CA 94538:
Despite the increased density of high tech buildings in the Fremont area, the Virage Logic HQ building was a snap to find, since it is just around the corner from the then-HQ of Gould Electronics Imaging & Graphics, where I was President & General Manager from August 1984 to October 1986.
During the December 2009 session at Virage Logic, I met as planned with Dr. Alex Shubat (president & CEO, member Board of Directors) and Ms. Sabina Burns (VP Corporate Marketing).
Background on Dr. Alex Shubat:
Before delving into the details of the position of Virage Logic in today’s panorama of semiconductor IP vendors, we started the December 2009 get-together by discussing Dr. Shubat’s background.
Alex Shubat was born in 1961 and reared in Latvia, in the city of Riga. His father was a butcher and his mother an accountant. Accountancy was also the field pursued by Alex’s sister.
During Alex’s childhood, the entire family moved to Israel and lived there for three years. By the time the family immigrated to Toronto, Canada, Alex was ready to consider college. With his keen technical bent and budding interest in electrical devices, combined with a strong secondary education, Alex chose to study electrical engineering at the local University of Toronto. His family now lived in downtown Toronto, so Alex could commute to classes from home, thereby saving on the expense that living on campus would imply:
Following through diligently on this opportunity, Alex earned both a B.S. and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto in 1983 and 1985, respectively.
California or Bust:
Having heard about the intense level of entrepreneurial activity and excitement in California’s Silicon Valley during his last several years at university, Alex booked a post-graduate trip out here on his own in 1985 for a “look see”. He was soon smitten and quickly leveraged his freshly-minted MSEE into an ASIC design position at Waferscale Integration.
WAFERSCALE INTEGRATION INC
Assigned to ASIC design at Waferscale, Alex focused on the technology for four years, and then he began to get group technical management assignments which gradually increased in responsibility. While he maintained his technical edge, he found that he was also becoming keenly interested in people and project management.
It was at Waferscale where Alex became friends with fellow employee Adam Kablanian, a close friendship that the two maintained even after Kablanian left Waferscale to join LSI Logic in the early 90’s.
Meanwhile, Alex met his future wife Irina here in the SF Bay Area in 1988, whom he married in 1989.
While at Waferscale, Alex pursued and eventually achieved a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Santa Clara University in 1995.
Virage Logic is Born:
Alex Shubat and Adam Kablanian continued to meet after each of their day jobs was done, and inevitably the two became caught up in Northern California’s entrepreneurial spirit and rich venture capital sources. Alex and Adam’s joint and separate experiences in the esoteric world of computer logic and chip design also helped the pair identify critical unmet industry process & design needs -- needs they believed they could uniquely fulfill “if only they had their own company.” So halfway through the 90’s, the two men decided they’d leave their steady jobs, form a fresh company on paper, and spend up to a year if needed seeking venture or angel funding for their “newco”, which they christened “Virage Logic” [1].
Alas, the then-extant local VC community was just becoming totally enamored with e-commerce and “dot-com” start-ups. The few VC’s that expressed any interest in the fledgling Virage Logic at all, demanded up to 90% of the post-money equity for the first meager round. Undaunted, Alex and Adam temporarily suspended their quest for VC funds and set about bootstrapping Virage Logic the old-fashioned way – from one chip design contract to the next chip design contract -- slowly adding new people, building over three long years a reputation for both performance and highly differentiated technology.
Alex and Adam’s eventual goal was to establish their novel company as the technology and market leader in providing advanced embedded memory intellectual property (IP) for the design of complex chips. They kept the dream alive via income from contract to contract, by obtaining funds from company employees, and eventually by a $3.5 million round of private financing in 1998 (of which Tower Semiconductor (TSEM) was a part).
By late 1998, Virage Logic was becoming fairly-well-known as an embedded memory core company that specialized in providing ultra-low-power, high-density and high-performance memory compilers for system-on-chip (SoC) designs, and developing & marketing memory cores for system IC designers. The company provided semiconductor suppliers and electronics systems companies with a range of memory types and configurations, tools to create memory cores, and related design services.
Finally, in 1999, Alex and Adam presented the now far stronger Virage Logic business plan to one Michael J. Stark, a co-founder of Crosslink Capital in the SF Bay Area. Michael Stark had led more than 20 venture capital investments in multiple industry sectors after joining Crosslink Capital in 1992. Before that, Michael was at Intel and then joined Robertson Stephens in 1983 where he served as Director of Research and equity analyst covering the semiconductor and software industries. At Robertson Stephens, Michael led investments in nine private companies, including Cirrus Logic, Cypress Semiconductor, Xilinx and Vitesse Semiconductor. In 1989, he was named director of research for Robertson Stephens and, in this role, established the investment direction for some 16 senior institutional analysts.
With that experience, and Michael’s engineering degree and MBA to boot, Michael and Crosslink Capital were by 1999 ideally suited for and receptive to Virage Logic’s pitch for expansion capital, especially after several years of Virage Logic’s growth from bootstrapping and smaller strategic investments, used to expand the company’s key technology partnerships and infrastructure.
Finally on January 24, 2000, Virage Logic announced that it had raised over $10 million in private funding for a minority position in the company. Lead investor was indeed Crosslink Capital. Several other individual investors from within the semiconductor industry were also part of this round. In connection with his investment, Michael Stark joined Virage Logic's board of directors.
Stark waxed prophetic at the time. "Virage Logic has - without a doubt - grabbed the lead in the embedded memory market," said Stark. "Company founders had the foresight to anticipate the need for embedded memory as a part of system-on-chip designs, and have met that need with an unparalleled expertise in memory architectures and products that are based on innovative technology. Virage Logic knows memory technologies; they know the markets they serve; and there is every reason to believe they will continue to enjoy the phenomenal success and growth that the company has exhibited since its founding."
Mr. Stark may have underestimated how prophetic he had been on January 24, 2000. For as quickly as August 1, 2000 arrived, Virage Logic announced its initial public offering of 3,750,000 shares of common stock at a price of $12 per share. The offering coincided with an additional private placement to affiliates of Crosslink Capital of 403,226 shares of common stock at the offering price, less the amount of the underwriting discount. The shares commenced trading that day on the NASDAQ National Market under the trading symbol "VIRL". With the completion of the initial public offering and the concurrent private placement, the company had raised gross investment proceeds of …$49.5 million!
Raising this much money on the NASDAQ exchange was all the more remarkable, since the index had already given up 1361 points between its historic high of 5046.86 on March 9, 2000 to close at 3685.52 on August 1, 2000. (The NASDAQ has not returned to its August 1, 2000 level since, thanks to two recessions during George W. Bush’s subsequent eight years. See the NASDAQ historical chart below, courtesy of Yahoo! Finance).
Virage Logic Financials since its Year 2000 IPO:
After reaching $53.0 million in revenue in fiscal 2004, Virage Logic’s revenue growth has flattened out in the five fiscal years since, oscillating around an average of $53.2 million per year between fiscal 2005 and fiscal 2009 inclusive.
Indeed, the behavior of Virage Logic’s stock (VIRL) since the August 2000 IPO at $12 reflects this recent 5-year performance ennui, as shown below. Notice that VIRL (blue line) occasionally traded above $12 only during the first few years after its IPO; VIRL has remained below $12 since 2005, and it has underperformed even the lethargic NASDAQ (^IXIC) (red line) during the last three calendar years:
Nevertheless – Note Today’s Virage Logic Management Optimism:
Despite the recent run of relatively unremarkable financial results, Dr. Alex Shubat, Virage Logic’s president and CEO, is very upbeat these days, saying that fiscal 2009 was a pivotal year and that Virage Logic management is proud of the progress made in recent years on the company’s transformation goals first articulated in 2007, especially in light of the challenging global economic environment during the period.
Prior to taking on the role of Virage Logic’s president and CEO at the age of 46 in October 2008, Dr. Shubat was Virage Logic’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) and drove Virage Logic’s strategic initiative to be first-to-market with next generation products by focusing on organic and in-organic product line expansion and on day-to-day operational excellence. Before becoming COO, Dr. Shubat served from January 1996 to April 2008 as Virage Logic’s vice president of research and development (R&D) and chief technical officer (CTO). In those roles, Dr Shubat led a 300 person technical staff to conceive, develop and deliver the highly-differentiated advanced technology solutions to Virage Logic’s customers. Dr. Shubat was elected to the Santa Clara University Industry Advisory Board in 2007. He is also a member of the IEEE and served as a committee member for the IEEE’s International Solid State Circuit Conference (ISSCC) from 2004 to 2006. He received an ISSCC special topic session award in 2005 and an ISSCC panel award in 2002. Dr. Shubat holds more than 20 patents and has contributed to more than 25 publications.
By the way, Adam Kablanian retired from Virage Logic as CEO in January 2007.
Acquisitions are Major Parts of Virage Logic’s 2007-09 Transformational Goals:
It is certainly true that after the very modest acquisition of In-Chip Systems in 2002, Virage Logic had been fairly quiet on the acquisition front, emerging only in August 2007 with the all-cash acquisition of Ingot Systems, Inc., which added Application Specific IP Solutions & Double Data Rate (DDR) Memory Controller Solutions to Virage Logic, along with a complement of 30 new employees.
The Ingot deal was followed in June 2008 with the acquisition of Impimj, Inc.’s logic non-volatile memory (NVM) intellectual property (IP) business for an aggregate of $5.2 million for assets. The purchase extended Virage Logic's embedded memory position into the rapidly-growing Non Volatile Memory market for standard CMOS processes, included more than 50 Impinj patents, and added some 30 new employees, 90% of whom were in R&D.
But even these 2007 and 2008 acquisitions by Virage Logic were small compared to what was to come in 2009.
In October 2009, Virage Logic acquired ARC International plc for $42 million in cash (25.2 million pounds), with offices in California, Chicago, in the UK, and in Russia, paying ARC on a gross basis before deducting ARC’s cash, 1.75x (1.2 net) revenue. ARC’s configurable 32-bit Processor Cores and Vertical Application Solutions complement Virage Logic's portfolio of Semiconductor IP and offer SoC designers a single source for highly differentiated IP. ARC also contributed 150 existing customers.
The acquisition is said to be accretive and should add $0.10 to $0.14 per share to Virage Logic’s earnings in fiscal 2010. The ARC business unit is being led by Dr. Yankin Tanurhan, vice president and general manager of Virage Logic's Processor and NVM Solutions, and the ARC products will continue to be marketed under their respective brands: ARC processor solutions and Sonic Focus audio enrichment technology solutions.
Virage Logic’s executive chairman Dan McCranie added, “The acquisition of ARC International represents another significant milestone in the execution of our vision of establishing Virage Logic as a broad-line supplier of highly differentiated semiconductor IP to our global IDM, foundry and fabless customers. Through both our organic and inorganic growth initiatives, we have significantly expanded our portfolio of standard products. With approximately $24 million in revenue for the trailing twelve months ended June 30, 2009 and over 150 customers, ARC contributes meaningful scale to our business. Furthermore, ARC significantly expands our market opportunity to include microprocessor cores, the largest segment of the semiconductor IP market.”
Continuing this aggressive tack, Virage Logic completed an astonishingly complex strategic alliance in November 2009 with NXP Semiconductors, to transfer part of NXP's advanced CMOS intellectual property rights and certain engineering talent and equipment to Virage Logic. NXP is a leading semiconductor company founded by Philips more than 50 years ago. Headquartered in Europe, the company has about 29,000 employees working in more than 30 countries and posted sales of US$ 5.4 billion (including the Mobile & Personal business) in 2008. NXP creates semiconductors, system solutions and software that deliver better sensory experiences in TVs, set-top boxes, identification applications, mobile phones, cars and a wide range of other electronic devices.
Under the terms of the multi-year agreement, NXP transferred to Virage Logic approximately 150 employees and the assets associated with selected advanced CMOS libraries, IP blocks and SoC architecture along with other classes of semiconductor IP, including approximately 25 associated patent families. In consideration for the assets, NXP received 2.5 million shares of Virage Logic common stock, and a share of the future revenue generated by Virage Logic from the licensing of the transferred IP portfolio. In addition, Virage Logic will provide to NXP services surrounding the transferred IP for a 3.5-year period, and NXP will receive a 3.5 year license to Virage Logic's extensive standard-products semiconductor IP portfolio for all future SoC designs. In consideration for the services and the license of the Virage Logic IP portfolio, NXP will pay Virage Logic $60 million over four years from the closing of the transaction in November 2009.
Virage Logic is establishing an R&D center in Eindhoven (Netherlands) to develop new products based on the acquired advanced CMOS I/O, analog mixed signal and System-on-Chip (SoC) infrastructure IP and to provide on-going support to NXP. These new products, expected to be commercially available in early 2011, will expand upon Virage Logic's already extensive product offering that includes processor solutions, advanced interface IP solutions, embedded SRAM’s and NVM’s, embedded memory test and repair, logic libraries, and memory development software.
Finally, and not to be forgotten, earlier in 2009, Virage Logic announced a licensing agreement with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) that granted Virage Logic the rights to license, modify and sell high-speed interfaces including PCI Express, HDMI/DVI/DisplayPort and MIPI IP. In the fourth fiscal quarter of 2009, Virage Logic rolled this new product line out to market. The Application Specific IP (ASIP) business unit, which includes the high-speed interface products, posted record bookings in fiscal Q4 and is poised for significant growth in fiscal 2010.
So by combining the acquisitions mentioned above with Virage Logic’s ongoing internal R&D efforts and inorganic growth initiatives, Virage Logic claims its product offerings have now quadrupled. As a result, its non-captive SAM (served available market) has grown from $200 million in 2007 to approximately $1 billion starting fiscal 2010, positioning Virage Logic very well indeed to serve as a single source supplier of a broad range of semiconductor IP.
Being First to Market:
Another tenet of Virage Logic’s philosophy is, “Being first-to-market with next generation advanced technology products.” On this topic, Dr. Shubat said, “As a result of our early leadership at 40nm and more recently at 28nm, we believe our SiWare™ Memory and SiWare™ Logic products offer the industry's broadest portfolio of silicon proven IP on this technology node. Today about 15 customers are actively designing SoC’s with our 40nm IP, contributing to about 25 tape-outs over the next six months thereby enabling our 40nm royalty revenues to continue growing. Also, during the fourth fiscal 2009 quarter, we booked our 4th deal in the 28/32nm node. Specifically, we are very proud of this deal as it represents our first multi-year, multi-million dollar 28nm engagement with an end customer, a leading IDM.”
Significant Impact on Fiscal 2010 for Virage Logic:
Dr. Shubat continued, “Our sales pipeline continues to increase and points to strong future growth in terms of both dollar value and individual deal size. Finally, the continuing shift (that) the large semiconductor IDM’s are making towards a 'fabless' or 'fab-lite' business model, plays to our core strengths and enables us to serve as an increasingly trusted IP partner."
Dr. Shubat concluded, "As a result of all the progress itemized above, as well as very strong license bookings for the past two quarters, we are entering fiscal 2010 with record backlog. Beginning in fiscal 2009, we have worked with our major customers in constructing license contracts that will reflect longer-term ratable revenue streams for our company. During the past two quarters, we were successful in booking several large, ratable agreements with major IDM’s. This strong backlog, coupled with the recent acquisitions and IP agreements of the past year, will enable our company to enjoy record license revenue in fiscal 2010. In addition, we believe that revenue from royalties will increase sharply in fiscal 2010, as a result of strong growth in semiconductor wafer shipments.”
More About Virage Logic among its Competitors:
In the foregoing treatise, we have focused mostly on Virage Logic itself. Readers realize of course that Virage Logic does not have the market niche of Electronics IP to itself. So for completeness, let’s examine further where Virage Logic stands in the small universe of its competitors.
First Some Background:
In 2003, this writer began a quarterly Commentary on the financial performances of a selected list of publicly-traded EDA software vendors, a Commentary published online at IBSystems’ EDAcafe.com. The initial EDA vendor list consisted of Altium, Ansoft, Cadence, Magma, Mentor Graphics, Nassda, Synopsys, Synplicity and Verisity.
In the same year, the writer also began a quarterly Commentary on a selection of publicly-traded Mechanical CAD and Mechanical Computer Aided Engineering (MCAD & MCAE) software vendors for MCADcafe.com. There, the initial vendor list consisted of ANSYS, Autodesk, Dassault Systèmes, UGS PLM, ESI Group, Moldflow, MSC.Software, PTC and Tecnomatix.
After several quarters, the writer asked his associate Dr. Jack Horgan to join him in co-authoring these quarterly EDA and MCAD Commentaries. Since both Jack and the writer had each enjoyed long, mostly separate corporate career experiences in multiple companies involved with both worlds of EDA and MCAD/MCAE, the effort for us each quarter seemed natural and clear-cut. Indeed, we have now published over 25 quarterly commentaries in each category since then (2003 through the end of 2009).
Here Come the IP Vendors:
Soon after launching the quarterly Commentaries on EDA and MCAD/MCAE, the folks from IBSystems asked us to begin similar quarterly reports on the small but emerging field of electronics intellectual property (IP). So we dutifully made up a list of then-current publicly-traded Electronics IP vendors and began reporting on their quarterly financial performances as well. The initial list of public IP entities chosen in 2003 consisted of ARM, Artisan, CEVA, LogicVision, MIPS, MoSys, Rambus and Virage Logic.
We further noted at the time (and since), that the Big 3 EDA vendors Cadence, Mentor Graphics and especially Synopsys, were/are also involved in various ways with electronics IP. However, we did not report very often in the quarterly Electronics IP Commentary on the Big 3’s IP activities because of the differences in how each Big 3 company arbitrarily chose and still chooses to define and selectively disclose the revenue components of its respective IP businesses. Further, none of the Big 3 EDA vendors unbundles profitability of its respective IP-related business lines, precluding IP earnings’ comparisons.
Additionally, while we have unfailingly reported the financials of the selected, publicly-traded electronics IP vendors each quarter, we seldom plunged too deeply into the details or history of the overall IP niche itself. But this IP niche continues to grow and our list of selected IP vendors now represents some $800 million in annual revenues. This IP revenue amount has risen to about 25% of the “standard” EDA combined annual revenue of the five EDA vendors we continue to cover regularly in our quarterly EDA Commentaries (Altium, Cadence, Magma, Mentor Graphics, and Synopsys). Moreover, IP vendors frequently become very active in making news via acquisitions, and we are again seeing larger EDA vendors buying up IP entities (e.g. MGC acquiring LogicVision in August 2009).
So the time has come to delve more deeply (beyond financials alone) into the niche of “Electronics Intellectual Property (IP) providers -- a niche that has emerged in its own right to claim a substantial amount of revenue in the world of Electronic Design Automation”.
Electronics IP Vendors -- Creatures of the Nineties:
For the most part, the electronics IP niche is less than two decades old, with only MIPS having been founded before 1990. (While MIPS was founded in 1984, it focused for many years on building a RISC processor within Silicon Graphics before moving toward the IP game).
Here are the founding dates in chronological order of the members of the Group of 8 IP vendors originally selected in 2003 for reporting in the quarterly Electronics IP Industry Commentary. Note that Virage Logic is the “youngest” member of the pack:
* The all-stock MGC August 2009 deal represented about a 44% premium for LogicVision shareholders. (By the way, late in 2008, Virage Logic offered to buy LogicVision for $1.05 per share, in cash, which represented a 114% premium to LogicVision’s then 49-cent per-share price that existed the day before the unsolicited offer was made. That deal was later called off by Virage Logic in the wake of a “poison pill” adopted by LogicVision’s board).
Electronics IP Group of Six Listed by Revenue Run Rate -- Virage Logic’s Position:
When the post-acquisition list of the IP Group of Six is arranged by current revenue run rate, the size dominance of UK-based ARM is clearly evident:
While Virage Logic has been holding its own in the lower tier of three, we observe that Rambus and ARM (in the first tier) are currently 2.1 times and 9.4 times larger revenue-wise, respectively, than Virage Logic, based solely on annual run rate for calendar Q3 2009. (As stated earlier, Virage Logic’s revenue is predicted to increase dramatically in fiscal 2010 due to its significantly broadened product portfolio. Recall from the foregoing that in November 2009, Dr. Shubat predicted that for the first quarter fiscal 2010 (the current quarter), Virage Logic is projecting revenues of $18.5 million to $19.0 million). We will watch for final results to be published next month, for as we shall see, this Virage Logic forecasted performance would shake up the past revenue size hierarchy as set forth above.
But continuing to look in the rear view mirror for the moment, it may be helpful in positioning Virage Logic in the array of similar IP vendors, to compare both revenue and earnings performances over a series of recent quarters. Revenue for calendar Q3 2009 is compared to Q2 2009 and Q3 2008 in the table below, taken from the writer’s Electronics IP Commentary first posted on EDAcafe.com on November 10, 2009:
Notice that ARM continued to dominate the group, with 64% or $123 million of the Q3 2009 group total of $192 million. Virage Logic was a distant fourth (behind ARM, Rambus and MIPS) with only 6.8% of the calendar Q3 2009 group total. So based on Q3 2009 revenue, Virage Logic was about a tenth the size of ARM.
Next, the Figure below provides a bar graph of each vendor's revenue for calendar Q3 2008, Q2 2009, and Q3 2009 in chronological sequence. A Pie Chart Figure follows for Q3 2009.
ARM continued to dominate with 63% of total revenue in Q3 2009, with Rambus a distant second at 15% relative market share. MIPS was in third place at 8%, with Virage Logic close behind at ~7%.
Relative to earnings, the Table below reveals that combined, the G6 IP Providers were again in red ink, reporting a collective Q3 2009 net loss $22 million, compared to net losses of $18.7 million and $24.9 million in the year ago and the quarter ago periods, respectively. Rambus accounted for the bulk of the G6 combined loss in all three periods. ARM, CEVA and MIPS managed net earnings in Q3 2009, while the other three suffered net loses, including Virage Logic.
On a year-over-year quarterly basis, ARM’s earnings fell 46%. Virage Logic and MoSys endured increased losses. MIPS delivered a turn-around quarter going from a loss of nearly $7 million in Q3 2008 to a net gain of $595,000 in Q3 of 2009.
On a sequential basis, three IP vendors were up and three were down. MIPS went from a net loss of $6.7 million in Q2 2009 to a net gain of $595,000 in Q3 2009. ARM was up 9%, CEVA down 24% and MoSys essentially flat. Again, Virage Logic crept deeper into the red.
Stock Market Prices of the G6 Electronics IP Providers in Q3 2009
The G6 stock prices on average outperformed the major stock indexes both year-over-year and sequentially.
As shown in the two Tables and Figure below, the combined stock prices for the G6 increased 11.3% year-over-year in absolute terms and rose nearly 19% sequentially. On average the G6 stock prices rose 2.5% year-over-year and 21% from the preceding quarter. Relative to last year ARM and RMBS stock prices rose over 30% with CEVA next in line at just under 30%. MoSys was the largest decliner at -41% followed by MIPS at almost -32%.
On a sequential basis all stock prices increased on a percentage basis. MoSys was the leader at over 51%. CEVA and MIPS saw increases over 20%. The remaining firms had sequential stock price growth percentages in the teens, including Virage Logic.
The Dow and S&P indexes dropped in the area of 10% relative to the third quarter of 2008, while the NASDAQ rose 1.5%. On a sequential basis the three indexes rose around 15%.
Calendar Q4 2009 Forecast Guidance from Individual IP Providers:
With one notable exception, the covered IP providers who provided guidance were not very optimistic about calendar Q4 2009 relative to last year. As a group they were forecasting a 20% drop year-over-year, with a drop of -10% as an average. However, consistent with the optimism expressed by Dr. Shubat and others in the foregoing text, the exception was, of course, Virage Logic, which was the only firm with a rosy projection (+33%) for calendar Q4 2009 (fiscal 2010 for Virage Logic),
On a sequential basis, Virage Logic was again much more optimistic (+43%) than the other firms.
Footnotes:
[1] How was the “newco” name “Virage Logic” chosen by Alex and Adam in 1996?
While the Virage Volante was an outstanding vehicle for Aston Martin,
… it was apparently not the inspiration for the name of the 1996 start-up for “newco.”
No, according to Dr. Shubat, the “Virage” part of the “Virage Logic” name was taken from the French word “virage” meaning “bend” or “curve”, combined with the elementary formula of Voltage x Current = Power (VxI), then the use of the letter R for “reduction”, and finally the word “age” tacked on meaning “era,” all indicating when combined into “VIRage” to mean, “To bend the path of technology toward a new age of power reduction (in semiconductors.)”
Makes one kind of favor the initial Aston Martin theory, does it not?
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eSilicon Names Virage Logic as Supplier of the Year:
FREMONT, Calif., Dec 10, 2009 -- Virage Logic Corporation today announced it has received the eSilicon(R) 2009 Supplier of the Year award. The award is presented annually to eSilicon's supply chain partners who have demonstrated excellence in supporting eSilicon and its customers with industry leading products, services and support. Virage Logic was presented with the Supplier of the Year award at an eSilicon-hosted dinner on December 9, 2009.
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Virage Logic’s December 17, 2009 Issue of IP Times for Nov-Dec 2009:
Among other valuable information in the referenced issue of IP Times noted here, is reference to a story by Jeff Donovan of Low Power Design, which emphasizes from a different viewpoint some of the points made about Virage Logic’s NXP alliance covered in this EDA Weekly article above, “Virage Logic – On the Move” by Russ Henke. The URL for Mr. Donavan’s article is: http://www.low-powerdesign.com/news_virage_111709.htm
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Virage Logic Corporate Description:
Virage Logic is a leading provider of both functional and physical semiconductor intellectual property (IP) for the design of complex integrated circuits. The company's highly differentiated product portfolio includes processor solutions, interface IP solutions, embedded SRAMs and NVMs, embedded memory test and repair, logic libraries, and memory development software. As the industry's trusted semiconductor IP partner, more than 400 foundry, IDM and fabless customers rely on Virage Logic to achieve higher performance, lower power, higher density and optimal yield, as well as shorten time-to-market and time-to-volume. For further information, visit http://www.viragelogic.com.
Virage Logic Management 2009:
J. Daniel McCranie
Executive Chairman
Alex Shubat Ph. D.
President and CEO
Brian Sereda
Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer
Brani Buric
Executive Vice President, Marketing & Sales
Daniel LaBouve
Vice President, Operations
Kamalesh Ruparel
Vice President and General Manager, Application Specific IP Solutions
Sherif Sweha
Vice President of Engineering
Yankin Tanurhan, Ph.D.
Vice President and General Manager, Processor and NVM Solutions
Yervant Zorian, Ph.D.
Vice President and Chief Scientist
Virage Logic Board of Directors 2009:
J. Daniel McCranie
Executive Chairman, Virage Logic
Chairman, ON Semiconductor
Director, Actel and Cypress Semiconductor
Michael L. Hackworth
Chairman, Former President and CEO, Cirrus Logic Inc.
Alex Shubat Ph. D.
President and CEO
Robert H. Smith
Director, Cirrus Logic, Epicor Software, PLX Technology and ON Semiconductor
Cathal Phelan
Chief Technical Officer, Cypress Semiconductor Corporation
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Acknowledgments:
The writer would like to acknowledge the direct or indirect support of the following individuals or sources in the preparation of this third EDA Weekly article: Ms. Sabina Burns and Dr. Alex Shubat of Virage Logic; Yahoo! Finance; Google Finance; and last but not least Sanjay Gangal, Adam Heller, David Heller, Jon Heller, and Sumit Singhal of IBSystems, Inc.
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Since 1996, Dr. Russ Henke has been president of HENKE ASSOCIATES, a San Francisco Bay Area high-tech business & management consulting firm. The number of client companies for Henke Associates now numbers more than forty. During his corporate career, Henke operated sequentially on "both sides" of MCAE/MCAD and EDA, as a user and as a vendor. He's a veteran corporate executive from Cincinnati Milacron, SDRC, Schlumberger Applicon, Gould Electronics, ATP, and Mentor Graphics. Henke is a Fellow of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) and served on the SME International Board of Directors. Henke was also a board member of SDRC, PDA, ATP, and the MacNeal Schwendler Corporation. He currently serves on the board of Stottler Henke Associates, Inc. Henke is also a member of the IEEE and a Life Fellow of ASME International. In April 2006, Dr. Henke received the 2006 Lifetime Achievement Award from The CAD Society, presented by CAD Society president Jeff Rowe at COFES2006 in Scottsdale, AZ. In February 2007, Henke became affiliated with Cyon Research's select group of experts on business and technology issues as a Senior Analyst. This Cyon Research connection aids and supplements Henke's ongoing, independent consulting practice (HENKE ASSOCIATES).
Since May 2003 Russ Henke has (along with Jack Horgan) now published a total of eighty-five (85) independent articles on MCAD, PLM, EDA and Electronics IP on IBSystems' MCADCafé and EDACafé. Further information on HENKE ASSOCIATES, is available at http://www.henkeassociates.net. March 31, 2010 will mark the 14th Anniversary of the founding of HENKE ASSOCIATES.