It's interesting in the EDA business how customers react once a small but successful startup is swallowed whole by one of the Big Four. Historically, there seems to be only two paths the acquired product can take: a slow, anonymous death or explosive growth.

Slow death was the fate for Ambit RTL synthesis when Cadence bought Ambit for $260 million. Ambit had been a thriving, up-and-coming challenger to the Synopsys monopoly, but Cadence's acquisition of Ambit quickly ended that. For customers, Ambit vs. Synopsys ceased to be a David-vs.-Goliath story: Now, buying Cadence Ambit synthesis instead of Synopsys seemed akin to leaving Microsoft Windows to switch to IBM's OS/2. Why drop one large, impersonal corporation just to hook up with another? Hence, Cadence Ambit's failure with users.

The classic example of explosive growth came after Cadence's purchase of Silicon Perspectives for $110 million. Before the deal, Cadence was looking like a has-been with creaking out-of-date tools. But the cachet of First Encounter's wild popularity transferred to Cadence, and Cadence was cool once again. The Cadence distribution channel only helped to make First Encounter more popular. And many of the Silicon Perspectives employees were given key jobs inside Cadence. Even today, Cadence First Encounter rocks.

Now that Synopsys has acquired Co-Design Automation Inc.'s Superlog for $36 million and has had more than 12 months to get Synopsys marketing and R&D fully behind what they're now calling "System Verilog," there's only that one all-important question left to ask. "Are there any users out there who are seriously contemplating switching to System Verilog?" asked Jay Pragasam of Brecis in ESNUG 419.

It'll be fun to see whether Synopsys System Verilog goes Ambit or First Encounter with users. Keep your eyes on ESNUG. The next few months will tell.

John Cooley runs the E-mail Synopsys Users Group (ESNUG), is a contract ASIC designer and loves hearing from engineers at jcooley@TheWorld.com or (508) 429-4357.