PCB EDA Vendor Rankings

Yokohama, Japan-based Zuken Inc. vaulted to the No. 2 position in sales among providers of printed circuit board (PCB) EDA tools as the result of a clarification of the firm’s revenues, according to Gary Smith EDA.

As a result of the clarification, Zuken had PCB software revenue of $117.02 million in 2009,. Mentor Graphics Corp. remained far and away the No. 1 supplier of PCB EDA tools in 2009, according to the report.

A report on 2010 PCB EDA revenue has not yet be completed.

Overall, PCB EDA revenue declined in 2009, according to the report, though the percentage of the decline was withheld at the request of Gary Smith. The revenue growth outlook for the segment in 2010 and 2011 is somewhat conservative, according to the report.

Other top five PCB EDA vendors for 2009 were, in order of sales, Cadence Design Systems Inc., Altium Ltd. and Fujitsu Ltd., according to the report.

Steve Chidester, Zuken’s head of product marketing, said Zuken reached out to Gary Smith EDA to correct a misperception that had ranked Zuken lower among PCB EDA vendors in previous reports. Because of the way Zuken breaks out its tool sales and maintenance revenues, previous reports did not include the firm’s maintenance revenues, according to Chidester.

Chidester and Gerhard Lipski, Zuken’s general manager for Europe and the Americas, said Zuken was working to correct the perception that Zuken is only strong and Japan. Over the past six years, Zuken has grown strongly in North America and Europe, they said.

Lipski said Zuken is not a marketing driven company like some of its competitors. “We have always been more technology driven,” he said. “But we need to get the word out.”

While Zuken remains strong in Japan, Lipski said, shifts over the last several years have led to more of the company’s most technologically advanced customers being based outside of Japan. “Today we see that more and more of the companies in North America and Europe are the technology leaders,” he said. “That’s a big change from a couple of years ago when the technology leaders where in Japan.”

911EDA supports the Mentor tool set as well as Allegro and Altium.