益華電腦 (CDNS) 2018 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon.

My name is Rob, and I will be your conference operator today.

At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Cadence Second Quarter 2018 Earnings Conference Call.

(Operator Instructions)

I will now turn the call over to Alan Lindstrom, Senior Group Director of Investor Relations for Cadence.

Please go ahead.

Thank you, Rob, and I would like to welcome everyone to our second quarter 2018 earnings conference call.

I am joined by Lip-Bu Tan, CEO; and John Wall, Senior Vice President and CFO.

The webcast of this call is available through our website, cadence.com, and will be archived through September 14, 2018.

Note that today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements and that the actual results may differ materially from those expectations.

For information on the factors that could cause a difference in our results, please refer to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

These include Cadence's most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q, including the company's future filings, and the cautionary comments regarding forward-looking statements in the earnings press release we issued today.

In addition to financial results prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, we will also present certain non-GAAP financial measures today.

Cadence's management believes that in addition to using GAAP results in evaluating our business, it can also be useful to review results using certain non-GAAP financial measures.

Investors and potential investors are encouraged to review the reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures with their most direct comparable GAAP financial results.

The reconciliations are available at the Investor Relations section of cadence.com.

Copies of today's press release dated July 23, 2018, for the quarter ended June 30, 2018 related financial tables and the CFO commentary are also available on our website.

Now I'll turn the call over to Lip-Bu.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today.

Cadence achieved excellent operating results for the second quarter with revenue increasing 8% year-over-year and non-GAAP operating margin of 30%.

John will provide details in a moment.

Our System Design Enablement strategy is perfectly positioned to enable the data-driven economy and the multiple key technology waves driving it.

We are increasing our footprint with system companies and tailoring our solution to vertical market segments.

Not only the cloud data center one of the most significant technology drivers, it also enable us to bring innovative design solutions and increased productivity to our customers.

This past month at Design Automation Conference, we introduced the Cadence Cloud, the industry's first broad cloud portfolio, for the development of electronic systems and semiconductors.

Benefits from using Cadence Cloud include improved productivity, intelligent scalability, optimized security and flexibility.

We collaborated with Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud to deploy our cloud-related products in customer managed cloud environments.

We also launched Palladium Cloud, which is a cloud-based emulation solution that easily addresses peak requirements of existing customers and brings emulation to new customers and markets.

Finally, in conjunction with the Cadence Cloud, we've launched Liberate Trio, the first unified library characterization solution that employs machine learning techniques and optimized for the cloud.

Cadence Cloud is endorsed by our close partners, ARM and TSMC, and more than 20 customers are using Cadence Cloud, including and Annapurna Labs, an Amazon company, and CNEX Labs.

Additionally, the aerospace and defense vertical had another strong quarter.

A major aerospace and defense company selected Cadence as a primary vendor for SoC design and verification, including our software and hardware products.

We also won a significant research contract with DARPA to develop advanced machine learning technologies that speed up in optimized power, performance and area results.

Watch for more announcements on this exciting project tomorrow.

Now I will review a few additional highlights from Q2.

Momentum continues to build up for our IP business.

It was another strong quarter for our flagship DDR and PCIe products.

We prototyped the world's first DDR5 test chip, achieving a data rate of 4,400 mega transfers per second in TSMC 7-nanometer process.

We had significant wins for DDR with a major semiconductor company.

For PCIe, we're the leading storage company, and we are working with our mobile customers on 7-nanometer sensor application.

Tensilica added 5 new model -- new logos, with wins for application in IoT, wearable, photonics and crypto-mining.

Moving on to our System Design and Verification solutions.

In Q2, our broad-based renewal with LG Electronics included adoption of our Xcelium Parallel Simulator.

Other key Xcelium adopters included a large Chinese customer and an AI processor startup.

Palladium added 6 new customers with 9 repeat orders.

Two of the new customers are using Palladium Cloud.

[MCU Computing] chose Palladium Z1 for their development for their next-generation ARM-based server chip.

Palladium Z1 when was chosen for its scalability for the large designs, state-of-the-art debugging features, stability and availability over the cloud.

Digital signoff -- digital and the signoff continue to be very -- continue to do very well with 8% year-over-year revenue growth.

Our digital and signoff solutions continue to proliferate with existing market-shaping customer and win new customers.

More than 20 customers adopted our full digital flow in the first half of 2018.

Continuing our innovation in signoff, we enhanced our Voltus IC Power Integrity Solution with the extensively parallel algorithm that provides up to 5x better performance with giga scale capacity and cloud ready.

HiSilicon verified that the new Voltus solution can deliver improved performance results for their future 5G silicon development.

Cadence also played an important role in enabling modern most technology such as RF, MEMS and sensor through providing advanced tooling and packaging solutions.

We launched a comprehensive new virtual RF solution, partnering with National Instruments, to streamline the design and verification process of analog and RFIC and modules.

In advanced packaging, we already support TSMC InFO and CoWoS chip integration solutions, and we now added support for the new TSMC wafer-on-wafer stacking technology.

Reliability also becomes more critical as semiconductors proliferate in new vertical segments like automotive, medical devices, industrial and aerospace and defense.

This quarter, we introduced the Legato Reliability Solution, the industry's first software products that meets the challenges of designing high-reliability analog and mixed-signal IC.

Infineon successfully used this solution to speed up simulation runtimes by a factor of more than 100.

Like reliability, function safety is very important to automotive, industrial and aerospace and defense.

ROHM used the Cadence Automotive Solution for safety verification, which is critical component in its ISO 26262-compliant tool change for automotive chips.

Hitachi used our JasperGold platform to develop and receive certification for an industry safety controller.

Before turning it over to John, let me quickly summarize my comments.

We drove excellent results through consistent execution and broad-based proliferation and adoption of our solutions to meet the needs of the data-driven economy.

We introduced Cadence Cloud, the first broad portfolio of cloud-based EDA technologies.

Our growing aerospace and defense business had another strong quarter.

Our flagship IP products are doing very well in the marketplace.

Adoption of our Xcelium Parallel Simulator is growing.

Our digital and signoff solutions are proliferating with market-shaping customers and winning new customers.

And Cadence solutions are helping enable continued innovation in electronics through modern most] technology.

With that, I will now turn over the call to John to review the financial results and provide the updated outlook.

Thanks, Lip-Bu, and good afternoon, everyone.

I'm pleased to report we met or exceeded all of our key operating metrics in Q2.

And as a result of strong execution across our business, we are increasing our outlook for fiscal 2018.

Before we get into Q2 results, I'd like to remind you that Cadence adopted the revenue accounting standard known as ASC topic 606 for fiscal 2018.

These new rules, as we often refer to them, are now GAAP.

The numbers I present for our second quarter are based on these new rules unless otherwise stated.

Please also keep in mind that this is the first year we are reporting under the new rules, which are not directly comparable to those of 2017, which were reported under ASC topic 605 or the old rules.

For all 4 quarters of 2018, we will show our quarterly results as reported under the old rules to allow comparison to 2017 on an apples-to-apples basis.

Having covered that, let's now go through the key results for the second quarter starting with the P&L.

As reported, total revenue was $518 million, non-GAAP operating margin was 30%, GAAP EPS was $0.27, and non-GAAP EPS was $0.45.

And under the old rules for direct comparison against 2017, total revenue was $515 million, up 8% year-over-year.

Non-GAAP operating margin was 30%.

GAAP EPS was $0.26, and non-GAAP EPS was $0.44.

Now turning to the balance sheet and cash flow.

Cash and short-term investments totaled $825 million at the end of Q2 with approximately $475 million of that cash here in the U.S. Debt outstanding at quarter end was $650 million.

Operating cash flow in Q2 was $205 million.

During the quarter, we used $50 million for share repurchases and $45 million to pay down borrowings under our revolving credit facility.

As reported, DSOs were 39 days.

Under the old rules, DSOs were 36 days.

I will now provide our updated guidance.

For Q3, we expect the following results: revenue in the range of $510 million to $520 million; non-GAAP operating margin in the range of 27% to 28%; GAAP EPS in the range of $0.22 to $0.24; non-GAAP EPS in the range of $0.40 to $0.42; and DSOs of approximately 40 days.

For fiscal 2018, we now expect revenue in the range of $2.07 billion to $2.09 billion; non-GAAP operating margin of approximately 28%; GAAP EPS in the range of $0.95 to $1.01; non-GAAP EPS in the range of $1.64 to $1.70; and operating cash flow in the range of $535 million to $565 million.

We now expect the difference in revenue under the new and old rules to be approximately $25 million.

As a result, under the old rules, our implied 2018 guidance at the midpoint is now expected to be revenue of approximately $2.105 billion; non-GAAP operating margin of approximately 29%; GAAP EPS of approximately $1.06; and non-GAAP EPS of approximately $1.74.

And our operating cash flow is expected to be approximately $550 million.

Please note that we expect our operating cash flow to be the same under both the new and old rules because our transition to the new rules in 2018 is just an accounting change, and as a result, there is no impact to our cash flows or how we operate our business.

For more details on the impact of the transition to the new rules on our financial statements, please see our CFO commentary, which was included with our 8-K filing today and is available on our website.

To sum up today's call, I want to highlight that I am pleased with our progress.

On an apples-to-apples basis, we are now expecting annual revenue to increase by more than 8% compared to the 7% revenue growth we achieved in 2017.

We expect non-GAAP operating margin on the basis of the old rules to improve to approximately 29% for the year compared to 27.5% last year.

And it’s pleasing to me to see so much of the improvement in profitability flowing through to operating cash, which we now expect to land at a midpoint of $550 million for 2018, an increase of approximately $80 million over last year.

Before I finish, I'd like to thank the extended Cadence team for their operational discipline, their drive and passion to make our customers successful and for the very large part they have all played in allowing us to raise our guidance for the year.

And with that, operator, we'll now take questions.

(Operator Instructions) And your first question comes from the line of Monika Garg from KeyBanc Capital Markets.

First of all, if I look at -- just see at 605 equal in operating margins.

As you highlighted, John, pretty great, 29%.

Where do you think operating margins could be next 2 to 4 years?

Monika.

Yes, we believe there is still room to grow operating margin.

We're confident in our model and believe that our System Design Enablement strategy opens up additional growth opportunities for us.

All right.

Then if I look at the guidance, first half revenue is growing like 8.5% kind of plus -- 8% plus year-over-year, but back half is close to 6%, looking at the guidance.

Any reason why we would see deceleration in growth in back half?

Overall, business is good.

I wouldn't focus too intensely on the results of any one individual quarter or one half over the other.

Our focus is more on improving year-over-year.

The business is very strong for all the reasons that Lip-Bu talked about.

I mean, for 2018, we're now looking at over 8% revenue growth, and almost all of that is organic.

And like we said on non-GAAP operating margin, I mean, that's up to 29% compared to 27.5% achieved last year.

The other thing to note, on cash, the first half is particularly strong for operating cash flow due to the timing of collections.

And that's just a shift in between quarters within this year.

Got it.

Just the last one here for Lip-Bu.

Lip-Bu, Synopsys entered software security market about 4 years back.

Would that market be interesting for Cadence?

And could you talk about your views on Cadence's M&A strategy?

Sure.

So I think there's 2 part of the question.

One is on the security side.

Clearly, we are also looking at that, and then how to provide really high-quality design for our customers, including stronger in verification, and security is part of it, and then to drive the success to our customers.

So that's one.

And then the second question, regarding the -- can you repeat the second question again?

Yes, just wanted to understand your views how you look at the M&A strategy for Cadence?

Yes, M&A, we have a very disciplined approach to the M&A.

And clearly, we want to fit into our overall strategy and also the -- providing the customer with the differentiating technology and also recruiting the -- bringing the top talent either in the managerial or technical side.

At the end of the day, it's very focused on the shareholder return.

Your next question comes from the line of Gary Mobley from Benchmark.

I wanted to start out asking about the strength of the IP licensing in the second quarter.

Can you speak to what drove the strength -- the repeatability of the second quarter strength?

And then conversely, it looks like your emulation business was weak during the quarter.

And we know that's an upfront revenue recognition product line, and so can you confirm that emulation was weak in the quarter?

And what's your outlook for the balance of the year in emulation?

So let me start first and then John will fill in.

So overall, we really liked our refined IP strategy, and it's working well for us.

It's another strong quarter for us in the DDR and PCIe.

We mentioned couple of key one.

The first DDR5 test chip is working and the 7-nanometer TSMC.

And I highlight a couple of key success with the customer, the DDR with a major semiconductor company, PCIe with the leading storage company and also working with a leading mobile customer on the 7-nanometer sensor application.

So overall, I think the IP business is doing well.

And Tensilica also mentioned 5 new logos, and then going at about over 10% of the revenue.

And so I think overall, we are quite happy with our leadership and also our IP portfolio.

And as you know, we recently just add the acquisition of new semi, even though will be minimal impact for this year.

Going forward, it would be exciting for us.

It's very critical for the hyperscale.

The infrastructure rollout, I think, is an exciting one for us.

In terms of emulation, I think clearly, we are also quite pleased with our performance.

We mentioned about 6 new customer and 9 repeat orders, and then 2 for the Palladium Cloud.

And so we are excited about that.

But I just want to highlight, it's a very lumpy business.

Quarter-to-quarter may change, but overall, we like what we have.

This is the third full year of continue to do well.

And overall, we're really focused on the verification suite that consists of Jasper, Xcelium, Palladium, Protium and VIP.

Overall, the verification suite is coming up nicely.

Okay.

I just had a follow-up question about your SaaS model or Cadence Cloud.

Should we assume that there's really going to be no change to revenue recognition, average license duration and perhaps, no change to the operating expense model to Cadence?

And should we view it really as more of a point of differentiation vis-à-vis your larger competitor?

That's a fair assumption, Gary.

That's -- Cadence Cloud offers customers another way to optimize their investment in Cadence tools.

It's a valuable addition to our product portfolio for both customers and Cadence, and it's too early to say more than that.

Okay.

But no -- you don't expect a change in the revenue recognition or the average license duration?

I don't, but it's too early to say that definitively.

Your next question comes from the line of Jay Vleeschhouwer from Griffin Securities.

Lip-Bu, let me start with you regarding the overall EDA landscape.

In the following sense, we've seen more and more examples of partnering in the industry, ANSYS with Synopsys, ANSYS with Mentor.

And then earlier this month, quite interestingly, Synopsys with Siemens.

And also in the parallel universe of technical software, we've seen examples also of more and more partnering.

And so it's becoming a little bit more evident that Cadence hasn't really been participating in these kinds of relationships.

I know you're very much focused on your own internal development, and Anirudh's done a great job with that.

But do you think that it's become increasingly important for you to participate in some of the kinds of relationships that we've seen more and more around you in the industry?

Yes.

So I think you have 2 part of the questions.

So one is about the overall EDA.

I think, overall, I have to say, EDA is very good, driven by the strong design activity, especially when we drive the whole data driven and also the whole technology -- the technology waves and -- in terms of machine learning, deep learning application.

So we see the increase in the design activity, and we are very pleased to see that.

So overall, from the EDA side, we are excited.

And then the other part is also the broad-based demand for our innovative System Design Enablement solution, have been quite well received.

So overall, we are excited about the overall EDA environment.

Regarding the partnership, you mentioned a couple of them.

Clearly, we are also working on that.

And -- so I think it's important to really focus on what customer needs, and we partner in some cases with our peers and also ecosystem partners, working together to support the customer success.

And couple of them that we highlight in the past from, partnership with MathWorks and a partnership with National Instruments and many others.

And so we continue to do that, and then we have our great success also.

With respect technology, let me ask you about 3 products that, if they succeed, might stimulate some incremental growth for you.

But you haven't really talked about them.

Number one is Pegasus, which you announced over a year ago at DAC.

What's the status of that?

I know it's hard to share shift in that market, but it is an important new product for you.

Secondly, Synthesis, there -- clearly, under 10 nanometers, some increment requirements for Synthesis.

So do you see that as perhaps a source of incremental business for you?

And then lastly, you've just launched Sigrity 2018.

Could that stimulate some resurgent growth in PCB for you as we saw 6 years ago?

Jay, it's a good questions.

Let me address one by one.

Pegasus, as you know, this is the -- for the manufacturing-related area.

We are excited about the design we have with a massive parallelism and also cloud enabled so that we can really addressing all the cloud requirement.

And then the other part is clearly, the -- we are now, we are very focused on the certification from some of the foundry partners, and we are excited about that, and stay tuned.

And then on the Synthesis side, Genus, we are making great progress with multiple customer in the most advanced nodes.

And then the Sigrity, in term of the product and then the -- so far, we have great success, and then it's tied in with Voltus.

And the approach, I think, is very good.

But so far, we are not guiding any specific product line.

And then clearly, just back to the Sigrity 2018, we have a new 3D capability that help the PCB that is quite unique.

So overall, I think all this already built into our guidance for 2018.

But just back to your point, these 3, we're making great progress.

Stay tuned.

Your next question comes from the line of Rich Valera from Needham & Company.

Lip-Bu, question for you on the macro environment you're seeing with your customers.

There's been some noise in the semiconductor industry around kind of where we are in the cycle, concerns about -- particularly on the memory side of the market.

And as well, there's been some issues on the semi-cap side with some pushouts of expected CapEx, which -- none of which would I -- I would expect would affect your business.

But I just wanted to get your sense on the demand trends within EDA, how they are now versus, say, a couple of quarters ago, and just how you see as far as the strength of the industry and your customer base.

Yes, good question.

So I think on the macro side, clearly, as I mentioned earlier, we see the design activity increase.

And due to a couple of factors I mentioned earlier, the next decade would be the big data, data analytics.

And that change the whole workload and become more data-driven economy, and we are very well positioned for doing that.

And then, also some of the new technology like 5G, the machine learning, deep learning and some of the new ROHM model fix and related -- silicon photonics, related area.

And we are very well positioned for that.

So I think, overall, EDA is more related to the design activity, and we really see the increase out there.

So I think overall, I'm cautiously optimistic on that.

Regarding the memory, clearly, the memory related to data memory and storage, will be critical for us.

We are delighted.

We are making great progress on the memory player and the customer we highlight in the past 2 quarters.

We continue to make progress on that.

And we also have very good progress on the some of the storage related.

We just highlighted some of the IP engagement with a storage player.

And so I think overall, the demand trend is continue to look good.

And regarding the semiconductor cycle, as we all know, there's a cycle, but I'm very cautiously optimistic because we see the design activity has increased a lot.

So we are excited, and we are very well positioned for that.

One more on China, if I could.

You've talked fairly sensibly in the past about your knowledge of that market and your, I think, penetration of that market.

But just want to get your sense on the opportunity there, but also how you see that market potentially being affected by the current trade situation with the U.S.?

Do you think that they may be driven to actually do more internal development of all types of technology, including EDA?

And what are sort of the -- just the opportunities and risks for Cadence in the China market, if you could?

Good questions.

So overall, we have done well in China.

It's a growing opportunity, and we pay a lot of attention on that.

And China, as you know, the government is very committed to build their own domestic industry to be self-sufficient, and we continue to be -- and I think most important for us is really to be the best trusted partner to our customer globally, including China customers.

And we make sure that they -- our tool and our IP supporting them for their developments, and that's something that's a high priority for us.

And then overall, we paid a lot of attention about the trade war, and then clearly, we hope for the best.

But meanwhile, we really make sure that we are well positioned to support our customers.

Okay, that's helpful.

And one final one, and I'm assuming this is still the case.

But last quarter, you had to talk about IP likely being the segment of your businesses -- of all your segments that was likely to grow the fastest this year.

I think you were looking at that maybe as another double-digit growth year.

Is that still the case?

I would assume so from the commentary, but just wanted to confirm that.

Yes, Rich.

The -- yes, I mean, when I look at the results, we're not guiding revenue by individual product groups, but what I can say is that yes, we continue to expect IP to be our fastest-growing product group for 2018.

Yes, that's true.

Your next question comes from the line of Mitch Steves from RBC Capital Markets.

I really have 2. The first one's a bit nuanced.

So I know you guys kind of benefited when the U.S. dollar strengthened.

Is there any way to quantify what the tailwind of that was this quarter?

There was a tailwind, Mitch, but it was minimal.

Is that going to be the same case next quarter as well, assuming the rates are the same?

Assuming the rates are the same, it will be already embedded in our guidance.

Okay.

Perfect.

And then second question is just more of a -- kind of a thematic one.

So the semi-cap guys are out talking about how kind of EDA designs seem to be more integrated with what they're doing.

Is there any reason why you guys would integrate both the semi-cap company and the EDA company in the future?

Yes.

So I think, Mitch, first of all, I'm not going to speculate.

And -- so clearly, we work closely with all our ecosystem partner and ranging from the IP to the foundry, and include the semi-cap equipment.

And so I think, this is a whole ecosystem, and we focus on what we do best in term of providing the tool and IP to be the best partner for the customers.

Got it.

And then I guess, just one last one.

There's a lot of private companies in the automotive side specifically that I noticed.

Is that market still fragmented?

Or how do you guys view the automotive space specifically for design?

Yes, we are very excited about automotive verticals.

And clearly, we are very well positioned on that.

As you can tell, the automotive right now have a lot of more electronic components, and they also -- everybody from Tier 1 to the automotive maker, they're putting a big effort into the ADAS in term of machine learning, deep learning, to drive in the cloud-connected and -- device in vehicles.

And we are very heavily engaging with them.

And stay tuned.

I think this is a great platform.

We have great opportunity in term of the IP and also the tool.

We are well positioned for supporting them.

Your next question comes from the line of Tom Diffely from D.A. Davidson & Co.

Maybe first, to follow-up on Richard's question on China.

Do you have more exposure on the printed circuit board side of your business there?

Is it more on the chip design side?

Can you repeat the question again?

Yes, your exposure in China, is it more exposed to your PCB design tools, or to your chip -- actual chip or semiconductor design tools?

I think we are more -- we don't have the breakdown, but I think clearly, more on the chip design activity.

And then the PCB side, clearly, we have some engagement from our Allegro and then the packaging-related area.

But overall, it's a good opportunity for us, and we continue to support our customer.

Okay, great.

Just a couple of questions then on the cloud.

The industry, for several years, have been talking about moving to the cloud, and there's been some small, little movements here and there.

But what do you think it is about the increases or the advances in security that make now the right time to be more aggressive on moving towards the cloud?

Yes, I think you have a good questions, and clearly, cloud data center and Cadence Cloud is a high priority for us.

We are delighted.

We are collaborating with Amazon, Microsoft and Google to provide cloud readiness to our customer managed cloud.

And that's something that is exciting.

And we highlight a couple of offering from Palladium Cloud to Liberate Trio that is cloud available, and Pegasus on the cloud available.

And we have great traction in term of customer adoptions and endorsement by ARM and TSMC.

So overall, I think the securities issue that the last 2 years we have been working through with our foundry partner and our IP partners.

And then more important is to make sure that our customer are satisfied, and then really feel comfortable to deploy and in their customer managed cloud.

And that's something that's exciting, and we have rolling out product-by-products available in a very broad way to provide the cloud to really drive productivity, scalability and optimized security and flexibility to the customer, and we are very focused on the customer success here.

Okay.

So when you talk about customers, is it mainly the smaller customers that can really benefit from the economics of moving to the cloud?

Or you're also seeing some of the larger customers move there, just more of a -- maybe a capacity overflow point of view?

To answer your question, both.

And so very excited to see some of the major customer really want to be in the cloud, and that can really drive the -- as you know, the day (sic) [data] is driving the productivity and the performance of their design.

And when you can able to partition all your design to spread over the unlimited server, that can be really, really drive the performance.

And they see the benefit.

That is really the key thing for us okay, then, to really embark on it.

And then some of the smaller company also benefit from it.

So at the end, either the small company or big company is really the bottom line is drive the performance, and then the scalability and the productivity for their design.

Okay.

Then finally, when you're looking out 3 to 5 years, what percent of your business -- or what is your vision for it as far as how big cloud becomes as a percentage of the overall business?

It's a little bit too early to give the guidance.

And clearly, we are excited about this new Cadence Cloud, and we are focused on it, and then focus on customer success.

And we are delighted -- the leading hyperscale web service cloud guys are partnering with us.

And we are also very excited.

TSMC and ARM are endorsing and supporting us, and this is a major effort, and we are clearly the leader in this.

Our final question comes from the line of Sterling Auty from JPMorgan.

I wanted to continue the line of questions on the Cadence Cloud.

Can you help us understand, what is the pricing structure for your solutions in the cloud versus the traditional on-premise solutions?

Sterling, this is John.

A key part of our strategy is to become increasingly mission-critical to our customers, and Cadence Cloud offers customers another way to optimize their investment in Cadence tools.

And we believe that Cadence Cloud will make our product portfolio more valuable.

Okay, but does that mean -- are you pricing on a per user, some sort of per-process or per-meter pricing like traditional Amazon?

Just to understand how this opportunity will grow.

Again, it's a valuable addition to the product portfolio and customers will pay for the value they receive.

I mean, generally -- operationally, we focus on 3 key things, which I believe creates a virtuous cycle.

We lead with innovation, which makes us become increasingly mission-critical to our customers, and we drive operational excellence across the company.

That virtuous cycle creates gains with Cadence that improve cash flow, and then we use that cash flow to reward employees, return value to shareholders, and invest in product development and new innovation to continue that virtuous cycle.

And as Lip-Bu said earlier, when our customers look at Cadence Cloud, they’ll focus on productivity, scalability, security and flexibility.

And in some way, I think, Sterling, the feedback from our customer is really delighted because they see clearly performance improvement, productivity improvement, and that mean that we can really support the pricing that we want to support a customer success.

Yes.

And when you look at -- obviously, the first solution tier seemed to be in the verification and emulation area, which makes perfect sense given the elastic compute capabilities of those clouds platforms.

Wondering what the gross margin impact has that particular set of products.

Is it actually better for your gross margins given the low-margin hardware that you typically have to ship with it, or is it actually maybe neutral to the gross margins?

Yes, Sterling, I think a little bit too early to tell.

But so far, we are very encouraged in some of the customer feedback and also very strong partnership with TSMC and our hyperscale partners and to scale out and really able to provide that unlimited servers that they -- customer can enjoy, and then scalability and the productivity and the time-to-market for the benefit.

And hopefully, that will really drive the success of the cloud.

Got it.

And then very last question on the cash flow and collections.

John, you mentioned just -- this was collections that you expected.

So it sounds like some of the collections perhaps came earlier in the year than we would have expected anyway.

Can you just walk through what drives the change in the timing of those collections?

Was it anything to do with either early renewals or other things that maybe allowed further up-sell into those customers?

No.

It was mainly on the IP and hardware side.

We received some IP and hardware payments in the first half that would normally have fallen more evenly across the year, and that caused the first have to be particularly strong for operating cash flow.

But this is just a shift between quarters within this year, though.

I will now turn the call over to Lip-Bu Tan, Chief Executive Officer, for closing remarks.

In closing, through continuous innovation and execution, we are well positioned with our System Design Enablement strategy to leverage the multiple technology waves that further proliferate our solutions with a broader base of customers.

We are proud of the innovation -- innovative and inclusive culture we are building at Cadence.

I would like to thanks all our shareholders, customers and partners, Board of Directors and hard-working employee globally for their continued support.

Thank you all for joining us this afternoon.

Thank you for participating in today's Cadence Second Quarter 2018 Earnings Conference Call.

This concludes today's call.

You may now disconnect.