VHDL vs. Verilog: and the winner is…

Electronic News, July 1, 1996

San Jose, Calif.--Is VHDL overtaking Verilog? Yes and no.

According to market statistics being made available on a subscription basis by the Electronic Design Automation Companies Association (EDAC), shipments of products using the Verilog hardware description language (HDL) produced $73.4 million in revenue in 1995, up from $66.8 million in 1994. Meanwhile, VHDL revenues last year were $52.5 million, down from 1994's $59.2 million.

Revenues are only part of the story, however. The EDAC statistics also show there were 4,235 VHDL units shipped in 1995, compared with 4,188 Verilog units. The HDL wars have simmered down, but there is still some ammunition for lively debates on who's "winning."

EDAC's Market Statistics Service (MSS) report is now available with full 1995 statistics on a variety of market segments in EDA. Some 30 vendors are participating in reporting statistics to the program, including the four biggest: Cadence Design Systems, Mentor Graphics, Synopsys and Viewlogic Systems.

With data dating back to 1Q94, the MSS report is now available at a yearly subscription rate of $3,500. It is published quarterly, with 1994, 1995 and quarterly 1996 data available.

The independent accounting firm of Arthur Andersen collects and compiles the data from each reporting company. Data is collected from at least five vendors for each category. These companies must represent at least 80 percent of the EDA revenue for the category.

Other vendors participating in the MSS program include Accel Technologies, Avant!, Compass Design Automation, EPIC Design Technology, High Level Design Systems, OrCAD, Xilinx and Zuken-Redac.

For 1995, the MSS report added categories for maintenance revenue and for four geographical regions: North America, Europe, Japan and the rest of the world. 1996 data will include consulting, physical libraries and a separate category for timing analysis.

In providing a taste of the statistics available in the MSS report, EDAC said new license revenue for automatic placement and routing software grew 37 percent from 1994 to 1995, to $75.45 million from $55.2 million, while the average selling price of the software increased less than 3 percent, to $49,540 from $48,180. The growth came in the number of units sold, from 1,145 in 1994 to 1,523 in 1995.

Two additional categories in the MSS report are ASIC synthesis and field programmable gate array and programmable logic device (FPGA/PLD) synthesis. The EDAC figures show ASIC synthesis grew by nearly 20 percent in 1995, to $134.5 million. FPGA/PLD synthesis dropped in revenue by 13 percent from 1994 to 1995, although the number of seats grew by 19 percent, according to EDAC, which didn't supply specific figures on that segment.

Other segments examined by the MSS report include revenues sorted by operating system (Unix vs. PC), revenue type (new license sales and maintenance revenue) and application (CAE, printed circuit board/multichip module layout, IC layout). There's also further segmentation into such categories as high-level entry and gate-level entry; VHDL-based simulators, Verilog-based simulators, gate-level simulators and proprietary HDL simulators; circuit (analog) simulators and mixed-signal simulators; analysis tools; test automation; floorplan management and floorplanning; layout verification; full-custom tools; and module development tools.

"This service is similar to the one of the Semiconductor Industry Association in that it serves many audiences and is a not-for-profit service administered with the sole mission of providing timely industry information," said Wally Rhines, president and CEO of Mentor Graphics and this year's chairman of EDAC. "The report provides data for tracking revenue, units and consequently the average selling price (ASP) in individual sub-applications."

Aart de Geus, president and CEO of Synopsys and co-chairman of EDAC, added: "In addition to having quarterly trend information, properly segmented data is also important. Having a breakdown by specific product areas, geography and platforms is extremely valuable in ongoing business analysis."

Jennifer Smith, chair of the MSS committee and manager of industry marketing programs at Synopsys, said: "EDAC's Marketing Statistics Service was started by the users, for the users, in order to provide more timely market information. We hope to widen our pool of users to include more of the financial community, analysts and customers, and provide them with timely, accurate data on what technology trends are occurring in EDA. Other services such as Dataquest, Collett International and EDA Today complement this service by providing ongoing EDA data analysis, forecasting and market share information."