( ESNUG 584 Item 5 ) -------------------------------------------- [06/21/18]
From: [ John Cooley of DeepChip.com ]
Subject: Is the ESD Alliance going to now help kill off the EDA industry?
Hi, All,
I'm hearing crazy, effed-up news that EDAC will join SEMI and then break
from DAC to instead have an "EDA presence" at the Semicon West show?
Why would EDAC even do this since they've co-sponsored DAC for 27 years?
(Ok, technically, it's called the "ESD Alliance" or "ESDA" now, but it's
still the EDAC we all know. It's the same entity with the same EDA people.)
THE EDAC BACKSTORY: I get it. The EDAC organization is having serious money
problems and they're not getting as many EDA start-ups to join it. The SEMI
organization swooping in as white knight saves the EDAC organization from
shutting down.
And this "continuing to pursue its mission of representing [EDA] companies
in the semiconductor design ecosystem" will be able to continue if they
have SEMI as their sugar daddy ponying up the EDAC organization's funding.
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SEMICON WEST ISN'T EDA FRIENDLY: The effed up part is that EDAC now wants
to bail from the DAC conference and add an EDA contingent to SemiCon West!
Talk about a trainwreck! First off, SemiCon West is neither a chip designer
nor chip verifyer show at all.
SemiCon West is where the foundries themselves go to shop for silicon chip
manufacturing equipment. This is where TSMC and GlobalFoundries goes to
look at Tokyo Electron's new NT333 Atomic Layer Deposition machine, or the
Edwards EPX Vacuum Dry pump, or the Cohu Ismeca High Speed Tester....
.... or for software the SemiCon West attendees are looking at the Bistel
eRMS process recipe management system. This is a show for KLA-Tencor and
Applied Materials engineers. SemiCon West is not even remotely aware of
chip *designers* nor chip *verification guys* even existing.
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AND HAS ANYONE DONE THE MATH? For hard data, the prior San Francisco DAC'15
attendance broke out in rough numbers to:
DAC'15 EDA Academics/Researchers 2,300
DAC'15 EDA Tool Buyers/Users 2,100
DAC'15 EDA Vendors 2,600
DAC'15 total attendance 7,000
The big thing is those 2,100 EDA tool users who go to DAC.
In contrast, SemiCon West brags about 26,000 attendees. Assuming that all
of the DAC EDA tool buyers suddenly decided to go to SemiCon West, each
EDA user would be flooded out by 26,000 to 2,100 -- that is, outnumbered
by a 12 to 1 ratio.
Is that wise? Would that work? Will a Broadcom PnR user, or an Apple
STA user, or a HiSilicon IR-drop user bother to go to a show where they
were outnumbered 12 to 1 and nobody even understood their EDA issues?
They might give SemiCon West a try *once*, but after that, they'll be gone.
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NO FUTURE: The other aspect that DAC has, which SemiCon West lacks, is those
nerdy 2,300 EDA academics and researchers.
At DAC, if you want to see today's tools, you go to the DAC exhibit floor.
If you want to see the EDA tools coming 5 years from now, you go see the
DAC academic talks.
SemiCon West is purely a trade show. No academics. No EDA research. No
future.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
TWO CONFERENCES DOUBLE THE COSTS: "So what's the big problem of two EDA
conferences?" you might ask. Since DAC is not going away even though one
of it's sponsors (ESD Alliance) is gone it still has the IEEE and the ACM
sponsoring it. "But isn't two better than one?"
No, because DAC is in June and SemiCon West is in July -- 4 weeks apart.
First off, for those 2,100 EDA users it's a nightmare because now they have
to *choose* which to attend. "Hey boss, can I now attend *two* big EDA
shows that are 4 weeks apart?" won't cut it. This means 70% (1,500) will
probably stay with DAC, and 30% (600) will try the new SemiCon West show.
Secondly, this split for the EDA vendors is a losing proposition because
now they're stuck having to do *two* shows to reach those same 2,100 users.
Third, I've heard that SemiCon West booth floor space for the small guys
costs ~1.5X what DAC booth floor space costs on a feet^2 basis. If true,
it means the small guy EDA vendor costs goes up 2.5X just to reach those
same 2,100 customers. The Big 3 might not care because they can easily
eat a 2X cost increase; but 2X to 2.5X is murder for small EDA start-ups.
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EDAC/ESDA'S FAILURE ISN'T EDA'S FAILURE: In 2006, EDAC had 70 EDA companies
as members of its organization. Today, in 2018, the "ESD Alliance" only
has 24 EDA companies as members. Yea, the EDSA organization is in trouble.
But at the same time EDA itself has been growing. Using their own EDAC data
for Q4/2017, overall revenue grew 10.7%.
EDAC/ESDA pulling out of DAC and putting its energy into a rival conference
that directly competes against DAC might be a desperate "rescue" for the
ESD Alliance organization itself -- but it clearly damages EDA overall.
Maybe Aart might like this because of the non-EDA path he's taking SNPS on,
but I don't see how Lip-Bu, Wally, nor all the other smaller EDA companies
benefit if the only remaining public and open EDA conference is killed off.
Is the ESD Alliance working against DAC honestly helping EDA?
- John Cooley
DeepChip.com Holliston, MA
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