( ESNUG 535 Item 5 ) -------------------------------------------- [01/16/14]
Subject: EDA rivals say secret SNPS reorg shows SNPS custom tools hurting
> - One of my spies reports major shake-ups are coming in the Synopsys
> Custom Group. Names like Paul Lo, Antun Domic, Chi-Foon Chan and
> John Chilton are being tossed around. Keep an eye on them!
>
> - from http://www.deepchip.com/items/0528-10.html
"Where there's smoke, there's fire." - American proverb
MORE SMOKE: Four weeks ago one of my spies hinted that a major shake-up was
coming in the Synopsys Custom Group.
  
Antun Domic Paul Lo Manoj Gandhi
Now, recently, I've had four spies tell me that Paul Lo is no longer the
SVP/GM of the Synopsys Analog Mixed Signal Group -- and that now Antun Domic
and Manoj Gandhi have split Paul's BU in half -- plus the spies also predict
staff cuts are coming at SNPS in full custom R&D!
Please keep in mind these letters came from Synopsys RIVALS, so they're apt
to have some bias in them. Take them with a grain of salt.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
SNPS has just raised the white flag of surrender in analog/RF/custom.
No more analog/custom BU as of Jan 6th.
All SPICE simulation moves to Verification under Manoj Gandhi -- who
has never touched a transistor in his career.
All custom implementation (Custom Designer, Laker, Ciranova, Helix,
Magma Titan) moves under Anton Domic -- their digital implementation
GM. Paul Lo now reports to Anton.
Antun will chop up the custom place and route R&D groups to reuse
in his digital empire -- and not invest a penny to beat Cadence in
analog. Instead Anton will invest to kill Cadence in digital.
Even spending $200 million a year in R&D could not give Synopsys a
shot at getting one major fabless semi company as a user of Custom
Designer! The closest they got was Lantiq (formerly the Wireline
division of Infineon) in 2010, but then Lantiq went back to Virtuoso
by 2012. Antun will fight Cadence in spaces where he can win.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
As of Jan 6th, Paul Lo has been demoted to now be under Anton Domic.
In 2009, SNPS had $160 M in SPICE. 2013, even after the LAVA merger
where they acquired FineSim, SNPS has $100 M in SPICE. Now all SNPS
SPICE will be under Manoj's VCS group.
With this will come some deep product cuts. I suspect their eventual
final custom SNPS offering will most likely be:
- Custom Designer's schematic editor and sim environment
- Laker 3 for layout and polygon pushing
- Magma Titan's shape-based router
It will take them 18 to 24 months to get this code stable and working.
Anyone not doing direct R&D on these 3 specific sub-products might
be found redundant soon.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
Paul Lo is no longer the SVP/GM of the Synopsys AMS Group.
Paul's group is to be split. Synopsys SPICE is going under Manoj
while Laker and Custom Designer is going under Antun.
The why is because:
1. Paul was not able to move the needle on layout with
neither Customer Designer nor Laker against Virtuoso.
2. Paul was not able to capitalize on the Magma FineSim
acquisition.
3. There was still too much confusion on the product strategy,
and they had not been able to deal with the discounts that
had been coming out of Rajeev's Crazy House of Discount SPICE
just before the merger went down.
All that seems to have happened is Synopsys has given momentum to
the new fast Spectre XPS and BDA AFS Mega simulators.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
Chi-Foon dissolved AMSG on Monday, Jan 6th.
- Anton now has the custom layout and custom router products.
CD is mostly dead, with the focus going to the Laker R&D in
Taiwan -- where Laker still has a customer base. Expect the
Custom Designer code stream to be melted into Laker.
- Manoj now has all Synopsys SPICE. Expect all the many SNPS
fast MOS SPICE flavours to be merged into the FineSim code
stream. HSPICE will add more capacity and speed. All other
SNPS SPICE will eventually be orphaned. Aart still has no
viable AMS simulator.
Beyond full custom, Aart has a much bigger problem with Wall Street
because he's only shown 1% organic revenue growth. With no growth,
he's forced to go cut costs. My prediction is SNPS has a one-time
restructuring charge coming.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
Also be aware that these 4 sources claim this change happened on Jan. 6th,
yet now 10 days later, Paul Lo is still listed on the Synopsys.com site as
the "Senior Vice President and General Manager, Analog/Mixed Signal Group".
So either these four sources are dead wrong, or SNPS Corporate Marketing is
hiding these changes???
- John Cooley
DeepChip.com Holliston, MA
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