( ESNUG 481 Item 4 ) -------------------------------------------- [05/08/09]
Subject: ( ESNUG 480 #1 ) Veritools thrives; fluff & truth on Certess
> Have you heard anything about Veritools? Our maintenance is due, and the
> sales rep is using a hotmail account rather than work email. Their
> website appears to not have been updated lately. Just slack on their web
> site or are they going under?
>
> - Jarrod Brooks
> Cypress Semiconductor Corp. Lexington, KY
From: Robert Schopmeyer <schop=user domain=veritools hot balm>
Hi, John,
Just to let you know we are doing fine. In fact, Cypress just renewed
maintenance with us last month, but they are right we need to refresh our
web site. Everyone at Veritools also has a secondary email address in
addition to using the name@veritools.com domain name in order to get email
while traveling.
Although we have scaled back our costs a bit like every other EDA company,
we will last through the depression just fine, and even make a nice profit
at the same time. Our order rate is now running well above our order rate
for last year, indicating that our market is turning up.
We're currently working with several major very large new customers that
look like will result in significant new orders. The key to these new
orders is that our latest new VPI will have new algorithms to speed up
simulation times by several more times, while creating even smaller
compressed files. At DVcon we ran 128 MB of Verilog source code on a
common simulator which created a 42 GB VCD file in 19 minutes:
- Our old VPI can create a utF file of 3.1 MB in 128 sec.
- Our new VPI can create a utF file of 800 KB in 51 sec.
A utF file is the Veritools proprietary compressed format; it lets users
read waveform data almost instantly reguardless of the size the run. It
supports VCS, NC-Sim, ModelTech, HSIM, NanoSim, FineSim, and UltraSim.
Once in utF form, this lets us display waveform data almost instantanously.
Also, users are interested in our Veritools Verifyer. It has a built-in SVA
simulator allowing users to debug System Verilog assertions graphically off
line from their design simulator. Users can select any failing assertion,
see the exact part that is failing color coded, modify this assertion in a
"what if window", and then instantly retest this modified assertion, in a
matter of seconds vs hours or days using a simulator to do the same thing.
- Robert Schopmeyer
Veritools, Inc. Los Altos, CA
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
> What do you know about SpringSoft aquiring Certess? They laid off Michel,
> his sales, support, and marketing. What remains are 20 R&D in France who
> to report to Hsinchu. What type of buyout was it? Was it a fire sale?
From: Michel Courtoy <michel.courtoy=user domain=certess hot bomb>
Hello John,
The acquisition of Certess is a positive event for all involved:
- the investors: they made money; yes, VC's made money on an EDA deal in
a tough market;
- the Certess employees: everyone was offered a job at SpringSoft except
for a couple of sales people;
- the SpringSoft team: they get a great product, Certitude, that has been
adopted by more than 15 companies and complements their Novas portfolio;
- the customers: this merger insures that Certitude will continue to be
equally well supported for the three main simulators.
A positive story for our industry that stands out in the gloom spread by
debates with themes such as "EDA: Dead or Alive".
- Michel Courtoy
Certess Moirans, France
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
From: [ The Mask of Zorro ]
Hi, John,
I must be anon.
Certess was doing good and growing for their original customer (ST) to over
50 design sites all over the world.
It was pretty much break-even but for the company to move forward they would
have needed to hire a big sales force and for a niche tool there would be no
ROI. With the economy as it is, raising more money was not an attractive
solution, so it made sense for the company to be sold. Springsoft was the
logical buyer that would most clearly be able to extract value and not lump
it in a big catalog and end up giving it away.
From my understanding, Springsoft has taken on everybody and the only person
that was laid off was a salesperson where there was clear overlap. The R&D
and AE team are all there and the company had nobody in marketing that I
know of, so not sure who your source thinks was laid off. There were only
about 22 employees so his count is right but his interpretation is not!
Michel was not laid off but they don't need another CEO. He is involved in
the transition and will do his best to help. This is pretty classic stuff.
It's a real acquisition, not a fire sale or an asset sale. Springsoft got
the whole thing and will actively promote it. The VCs and key employees
made enough to have a big smile on their face, though clearly not enough
to buy an airplane -- but then it was a small company in a niche market so
that's a good outcome.
All in all, it's a good example of a cool technology that turned out to be
very useful to initial users. You had some posts on Deepchip on that:
http://www.deepchip.com/items/dvcon07-05.html
http://www.deepchip.com/items/0475-02.html
and Certess found a buyer who will be able sell it to the masses. Several
companies went after what Gary defined as "intelligent testbench" (OneSpin,
Nusym, etc.) but Certess executed faster and won the cheese.
- [ The Mask of Zorro ]
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