EDA產業之商業模式分析

Abstract

半導體產業在台灣已經蓬勃發展二、三十幾年了，在晶片越做越小複雜度也日趨困難的趨勢之下，電子設計自動化(Electronic Design Automation, EDA)產業已經是不可或缺的一環。輔助積體電路（Integrated Circuit,IC）從6吋晶圓發展到現在的12吋晶圓、製程技術線寬也從微米(um)推到現在的奈米(nm)。EDA是輔助IC設計朝向更高階複查設計及解決設計難題的產業，扮演著輔助IC設計與製造產業的角色，其關係極為密切。EDA 產業有其特殊性，EDA的市場規模成長很小，由於精實創業的觀念所以新興EDA廠商不斷增加，在市佔率不大的情況之下，大廠藉由陸續併購在特定應用具備獨到之處的小的EDA廠商，藉以維持技術優勢，並且創造足夠的經濟規模來維持新技術的開發與公司的運轉。 目前全球EDA前三大廠商分別為 Synopsys、Mentor Graphics及Cadence。因透過不斷購併，使得他們有能力在設計流程各階段推出EDA 工具，三家廠商的全球市佔率達到70%~80%。在高度集中化的產業環境下，這三家EDA的未來對永續經營應該有另一個層面的思考。本研究的主要目的在探討其中之一家EDA公司之商業模式分析。

The semiconductor industry has been under flourishing development for twenty to thirty years in Taiwan. The Electronic Design Automation (EDA) also becomes indispensible to the industry, for it becomes more complicated to produce smaller chips. Integrated Circuit (IC) is manufactured from six inches wafer to twelve inches now. Moreover, IC and process line width convert from micrometre (um) to nanometre (nm) today. EDA is an industry to assist IC design about developing more complicated and high-class design and solving problems. EDA plays an important role of supporting IC design and manufacturing. EDA inustry has some unique attributes; such as the scale of EDA market to grow is pretty small. Because of the lean startup concept, the new EDA firms are popping up quickly. Under the circumstance of minor market share, the large frims need to combine some specific small firms in order to acquire their unique skills to maintain their expertise. By doing so, the big firms then can create enough economic scale to hold their development of new skills and their business.

Nowadays, the top three of the EDA firms are Synopsys、Mentor Graphics and Cadence. Due to numerous merge，these firms are able to develop EDA tools in different design phases. Their market shares are up to 70% to 80%. Under the highly concentrated industry environment, these EDA firms should consider how to sustain their business critically. The goal of this research is to discuss one of the EDA firm's business model analysis.