Synplicity, you see, is an Internet company. You only thought that FPGA synthesis tools would fall into the EDA category. But the S-1 identifies Synplicity as "a leading provider of software products that enable the rapid and effective design and verification of semiconductors for Internet infrastructure."

Synplicity isn't the first company to jump on the "non-EDA" bandwagon. Numerical Technologies, a provider of optical-proximity-correction and phase-shift mask software, has mounted an aggressive campaign to convince investors, analysts and editors that it is not an EDA company. The strategy may be working. Numerical's stock price is well above that of any of the large EDA vendors, even though Numerical has a fraction of their revenue.

Virage Logic, the latest non-EDA company to go public, puts itself squarely in the intellectual-property camp with its memory compilers. It remains to be seen whether Wall Street will react better to "IP" than to "EDA."

Gary Smith, chief EDA analyst at Dataquest-or chief non-EDA analyst, if we want to keep up with the times-said the "not-an-EDA-company" syndrome started when Joe Costello decided that Cadence Design Systems was in the services business, not design automation. Now that the trend has really taken off, Smith said, we may have to rename the EDA Consortium the Not-an-EDA-Company Consortium.

This trend could go further. In future years you may be going to NDAC, the Non-Design Automation Conference, where providers of IC and pc-board design tools who are really, truly not EDA vendors will show their latest wares.

EE Times wants to keep up with the latest trends, too. We're thinking of renaming our weekly Design Automation section "Design Automation-Not!"

It is unfortunate that any identification with EDA can hurt a company's valuation, but that's apparently the case. The financial community is more interested in buzz words than substance. EDA vendors don't help when they engage in endless lawsuits, hype products before they exist or use licensing models that sacrifice future revenue.

But for us EDA editors, it's not such a bad trend. Now all I have to do is convince Loring Wirbel, our communications editor, that he's supposed to be covering Synplicity, not I.