( DAC 02 Item 1 ) ----------------------------------------------- [ 9/10/02 ]
Subject: The DAC Numbers
DOOM & GLOOM: Yes, this year's DAC attendance was as bad as you've heard it
was. Last year's DAC'01 attendance was down 12 percent to 14,081 people.
With the final numbers in, this year's DAC'02 attendance was down 33 percent
at 9,452 people total. The demographics tell an even more painful story.
EDA Vendors:
DAC 2001 ######################################## 7,969
DAC 2002 ########################### 5,424 (-32%)
EDA Buyers:
DAC 2001 ############ 2,501
DAC 2002 ######## 1,644 (-34%)
Academics/Press/Students:
DAC 2001 ####### 1,310
DAC 2002 #### 769 (-43%)
Guests/Wives/Husbands/Others:
DAC 2001 ############ 2,301
DAC 2002 ######## 1,615 (-30%)
Yup, things are bad here. That's true. But before you start telling your
friends and neighbors that EDA is a dying, doomed industry, you might want
to take a look around first. In case you haven't noticed, there's a tech
recession that's been going on since 2000. Layoffs are rampant and the
other tech conferences are feeling the exact same pain DAC is:
SIGGRAPH 2001: 34,024
2002: 17,274 (-49% drop)
JavaOne 2001: 19,000
2002: 15,000 (-21% drop)
International Test Conference 2001: 2,200
2002: 1,100 (-50% drop)
Embedded Systems Conference 2001: 14,056
2002: 11,571 (-18% drop)
Comdex 2001: 210,000
2002: 118,000 (-44% drop)
Simply put, you just don't ask your boss if you can go to *any* conference
(no matter how good it is) when he's busy putting together the list of
who's going to be laid off next month.
"I attended the cocktail party/talk sponsored by Dataquest and the EDA
consortium. Dataquest was proud that they predicted a very bad year at
their talk last DAC. In fact, we are in the worst downturn in the
history of the semiconductor industry. The prior worst downturn was
18%. Semiconductor sales last year dropped 35%, so this drop is about
*twice* as bad as anything that has ever hit the industry. Dataquest
anticipates a "U" shaped downturn - fast going in (which it was), lousy
for a while (which it is), and a rapid recovery once it starts (cross
those fingers). All foundries except IBM had big drops last year. IBM
wasn't hurt last year because they had a big backlog due to packaging
problems that delayed deliveries, but the backlog has been cleared and
now they are having layoffs, too. Speakers noted that despite this,
EDA had their best year ever; hence the rich EDA vendors being able to
wine and dine their impoverished customers.
Wally Rhines, chairman of Mentor, was the first speaker and noted that
EDA companies have about the same average return as semiconductor
companies but more predictable performance, so EDA stocks should be
trading at higher P/E ratios. It's good to know that the DAC tradition
of self-serving keynote speakers hasn't died (well at least he was
trying to help all the EDA vendors).
Last year Dataquest thought the downturn wouldn't affect the number of
design starts. DQ was way off here; design starts are way, way down."
- John Weiland of Intrinsix
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