Interdigital: Inside the iPhone

By Vijay Nagarajan, Guest Author I concluded the last article in this series postulating that Interdigital will stand to gain not only from the licensing of essential patents to Apple but also from individual iPhone sales. To reason this out, let us take a quick look at the Infineon chipset in the current iPhone design-

Mentor Graphics: LBO Recommended

Our third company in the EDA review is Mentor Graphics (MENT). As I said in the Cadence piece, if any company in the EDA industry is perfect for an LBO, it is Mentor Graphics. It has at least two excellent franchises – DFM and PCB design – and other players in the industry would be

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Interdigital: The Infineon Alliance

By Vijay Nagarajan, Guest Author In the last article in this series, we took a brief look at Interdigital’s new 3G ASIC venture and the thought process behind these moves. In this piece, I wish to focus on the company’s alliance with Infineon, the German semiconductor company, whose latest claim to wireless fame is its

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Synopsys Looks Healthy, But

In our EDA review, Synopsys (Nasdaq: SNPS) is the second major player, always going neck-to-neck with Cadence. Synopsys announced Q4 earnings on December 6, 2007. Unlike the losses posted by competitor Mentor, Synopsys executives were quite pleased with their results and momentum throughout the year enabling Synopsys to meet or exceed all of their original

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Convergence Device Components: Unwisely Beaten Up?

I had earlier covered Broadcom, Marvell, Micron, and National Semi in the series on iPhone’s component ecosystem. Broadcom and Marvell were covered in the iPhone and the Future series as well. And this week, Vijay Nagarajan launched his deep-dive on Broadcom. Lets take a look at the financials in this post.

Broadcom: Strengths and Weaknesses

By Vijay Nagarajan, Guest Author 2007 has been a happening year for the wireless industry. Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android are just two examples of how even outsiders want a part of this very luscious pie. 2007 was eventful for another reason – the legal battles between two American communication devices manufacturers – Qualcomm and

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Cadence: Buyout Rumors Persist

I have regularly commented on the EDA industry and discussed specific companies in the past, including Cadence, Mentor, Magma, and Synopsys. Today I come back to look at Cadence again, and examine what has changed since. During the summer Cadence (CDNS) was rumored to be in buyout discussions with Blackstone and KKR, which I said

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Intuit Is Not Getting SaaS Credit

In my last post on Intuit, I said I wanted to see an International strategy from the company. There has been no progress on that front. But Intuit will now have a new CEO Brad Smith and a new CFO, Neil Williams.