SAN FRANCISCO—EDA and IP vendors posted another strong quarter of sales in the fourth quarter of 2011, turning in revenue of $1.7 billion, up 10 percent compared to the third quarter and up 12.8 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2010, according to the EDA Consortium (EDAC)'s market statistics service.
For the full year 2011, EDA and IP sales totaled $6.13 billion in 2011, up 16 percent from $5.28 billion in 2010, according to EDAC.
Strictly speaking, both the fourth quarter and full year set records in terms of revenue. But Walden Rhines, EDAC chair and chairman and CEO of Mentor Graphics Corp., noted that EDAC began lumping IP sales in with EDA revenues in 2006—apples to apples comparisons with years prior to that are not possible.
But EDA license and maintenance revenue for 2011, which excludes IP and services, came in at $4.19 billion, up 14 percent from 2010 and the highest since 2007, when it totaled $4.4 billion, according to EDAC.
"EDA saw strong growth in 2011, but that came off of relatively weak years in 2009 and 2010," Rhines said. The EDA industry tends to lag the semiconductor industry by about a year, and the semiconductor industry grew more than 30 percent in 2010, he noted.
Computer aided engineering (CAE), EDA's largest category, generated revenue of $644.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2011, up 11.9 percent from the fourth quarter of 2010, EDAC said. IC physical design and verification revenue increased to $392.4 million, up 30 percent from the fourth quarter of 2010, EDAC said.
IP revenue grew to $432.2 million in the fourth quarter, up 13.4 percent from the fourth quarter of 2010, EDAC said. Services revenue totaled $90.9 million in the quarter, up 9.8 percent from the fourth quarter of 2010, EDAC said.
Printed circuit board and multi-chip module revenue in the fourth quarter of 2011 was $139.7 million, down 15.6 percent from the fourth quarter of 2010, EDAC said.
