Next month will see a significant milestone for Portable Stimulus. On September 15th the review period for the Early Adopter release of the Accellera Portable Stimulus Standard (PSS) will close and with it the opportunity to make your voice heard. This is an exciting time for Breker, the market leader in this space for the past decade, and signals a time when the industry can transition from a technology only available to a few aggressive adopters, to making it available to the mainstream. (more…)
The Breker Trekker
Posts Tagged ‘Intel’
Portable Stimulus Gains Momentum
Thursday, August 24th, 2017Portable Stimulus Takes Center Stage At DVCon 2017
Thursday, February 23rd, 2017When DVCon opens next week, attendees will hear plenty of talk about Portable Stimulus, a methodology and technology that’s grabbing industry attention and gaining momentum with the design verification community. In fact, I predict it will be the buzz of the conference this year.
The Genesis of Portable Stimulus
Tuesday, October 25th, 2016When I first met Adnan Hamid, Breker’s CEO, his philosophical understanding of verification and its implications for electronics was as crystal clear then as it is now. He sees it as the enabler for greater innovation in chips and beyond, and takes it as his life’s mission. His passion was inspiring to me and I did not hesitate for a second when we decided to jointly start Breker. Throughout our journey, I have watched the market converge with what we are building at Breker, and have come to better appreciate my partner, the visionary man. (more…)
A Further Preview of DVCon India 2016
Wednesday, August 24th, 2016Three weeks ago, we published a post on The Breker Trekker blog that previewed some of the talks and tutorials on the technical program at the upcoming third Design and Verification Conference and Exhibition (DVCon) India on September 15-16 in Bangalore. More of the details on the conference are now available online, and for today we’d like to highlight some of the keynote addresses, panels, and poster sessions on the agenda that also stand out for us.
As always, the program and steering committees have put a lot of thought into keynote speakers who will take a wide view of not just the EDA industry, but the larger electronics industry that we serve. Mentor CEO Wally Rhines is always a great speaker who comes armed with lots of charts and statistics to support his positions. His talk on “Design Verification: Challenging Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” will survey the history and evolution of verification while predicting some of the future challenges
Merger Mania and the Still-Changing Semiconductor Landscape
Tuesday, April 5th, 2016We try to cover a variety of topics here in The Breker Trekker blog, focusing on technical information but mixing in some general industry analysis as well. Two of our most popular posts of all time have involved the annual semiconductor supplier rankings from IHS, Inc. and the large amount of semiconductor industry merger and acquisition (M&A) activity over the last few years. IHS released their 2015 results yesterday, so it’s time for an update on both of these topics.
Let’s start by catching up on the M&A front. When we last covered this topic in January, the acquisition of Freescale by NXP and the acquisition of Altera by Intel had both just completed late last year. These closed in time to be reflected in the 2015 supplier rankings. There were several other deals from 2015 that were still pending and, while some of them have now closed, their effects will not be seen until the 2016 results are in.
What Does Semi Merger Mania Mean for EDA?
Wednesday, January 27th, 2016Some of the highest readership here at The Breker Trekker happens when we post articles about the state of the semiconductor industry or EDA industry. It’s been a while since we looked inward at our own industry, but we have had a series of very popular posts about the ongoing changes in the semiconductor market, including the “merger mania” of the last few years. Although not all closed, in 2015 alone there were several dozen offers totaling well over US$150B.
Since semiconductor vendors are the main customers for EDA, with their customers the remainder of our market, we track both industries very closely. In last week’s post, we looked what the ongoing merger and acquisition (M&A) activity means for Silicon Valley. Our friend Graham Bell at Real Intent added a comment wondering about the impact of this M&A on the EDA industry. Today’s post contains some of our thoughts on this matter.
Silicon Valley Still a Center of Semiconductor Innovation
Wednesday, January 20th, 2016As someone who has lived in the heart of Silicon Valley for more than 30 years, I’m used to the regular cries that we’re losing our innovative edge. Every few years something happens to cast some doubt on our future: a stock market crash, a major company moving elsewhere, or a lot of press about some new Silicon Forest/Glen/Mountain/Prairie/Island/Whatever trying to beat us at our own game.
Sure, we face plenty of challenges. A recent article on SemiWiki painted a rather cautionary view of today’s Silicon Valley. But there’s good news too. Silicon “Valley” has grown to include San Francisco and much of the Bay area, with corresponding growth in technology employment and impact. Today, I’d like to springboard from a recent post on semiconductor mergers and acquisitions to consider one particular aspect of the current role of Silicon Valley.
When Did CES Become the Chip Education Show?
Tuesday, January 12th, 2016Last week the International Consumer Electronics Show returned to Las Vegas, where it has been a major event for nearly 40 years. Nearly everyone calls this show CES, to the extent that its home page doesn’t even tell you what the acronym means anymore. So CES it is, one of the largest and best-known technology-oriented conferences in the world. Its sheer size makes it a test of stamina for exhibitors and visitors alike.
When people think of CES, they think of wandering the aisles and being overwhelmed by all the cool products on display. From massive HDTV screens down to the smallest Internet of Things (IoT) devices, this show appears to have it all. It seems to me, however, that CES has evolved into an event that’s almost as much about the underlying silicon as it is above the consumer-oriented end products. I’d like to explore that idea in today’s post.
Merger Mania in the Semiconductor Industry
Wednesday, October 7th, 2015Earlier this year, we published an analysis of the semiconductor landscape that became one of the most-read posts in the history of The Breker Trekker. That’s not too surprising, since business topics tend to have wider appeal than detailed discussions about verification techniques. That post focused on the top 20 semiconductor companies and the many changes in that list over the last 15 years. We mentioned a number of noteworthy mergers, acquisitions, and spin-outs that contributed significantly to the dynamic nature of the market.
The first three quarters of this year have seen a huge uptick in merger and acquisition (M&A) activity among semiconductor companies. Although many of these deals have involved second-tier players, at least a few are significant enough to result in changes to the next Top 20 listing. Since we follow the chip industry closely, we thought we’d summarize some of the recent announcements and speculate a bit on what it all means.
The Ever-Changing Semiconductor Landscape
Wednesday, April 8th, 2015By some measures, the EDA market is a dynamic one. Many of our technological advances have come from startups and small companies, a list that gets refreshed as new market needs arise and as former independents get acquired or merge. The technology changes constantly to meet the needs of the semiconductor suppliers and system houses that are our customers. However, when it comes to market leadership EDA is incredibly static. The same three big companies have been at the top for more than 20 years now, we believe ever since Cadence swallowed Valid in 1991 and Synopsys moved into the third spot. Of course there has been some shuffling among Cadence, Synopsys, and Mentor, but that has happened only a few times.
This is in sharp contrast to the semiconductor business. Although Intel and Samsung have been at the top for more than ten years, several different companies have been number three and four during this period, with many shuffles along the way. There has been constant churn below the top slots, with several dramatic success stories for new vendors emerging during this same period. Since semiconductor companies are a main source of sales for EDA, we pay a lot of attention to the market and how it evolves. In this post we show one noteworthy market assessment and discuss some of the reasons for the changes and some of the implications for the industry as a whole.
