益華電腦 (CDNS) 2023 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon. My name is Bo, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Cadence Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions)

午安.我叫 Bo，今天我將擔任你們的會議操作員。此時，我歡迎大家參加 Cadence 2023 年第三季財報電話會議。 （操作員說明）

I will now turn the call over to Richard Gu, Vice President of Investor Relations for Cadence. Please go ahead, sir.

我現在將電話轉給 Cadence 投資者關係副總裁 Richard Gu。請繼續，先生。

Thank you, operator. I would like to welcome everyone to our third quarter of 2023 earnings conference call. I'm joined today by Anirudh Devgan, President and Chief Executive Officer; and John Wall, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. The webcast of this call and a copy of today's prepared remarks will be available on our website, cadence.com.

謝謝你，接線生。歡迎大家參加我們的 2023 年第三季財報電話會議。今天與我一起出席的還有總裁兼執行長 Anirudh Devgan；約翰‧沃爾 (John Wall)，資深副總裁兼財務長。本次電話會議的網路直播和今天準備好的演講副本將在我們的網站 cadence.com 上提供。

Today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements, including our outlook on future business and operating results. Due to risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from those projected or implied in today's discussion. For information on factors that could cause actual results to differ, please refer to our SEC filings, including our most recent Forms 10-K and 10-Q, CFO commentary and today's earnings release. All forward-looking statements during this call are based on estimates and information available to us as of today, and we disclaim any obligation to update them.

今天的討論將包含前瞻性陳述，包括我們對未來業務和經營績效的展望。由於風險和不確定性，實際結果可能與今天討論中預測或暗示的結果有重大差異。有關可能導致實際結果不同的因素的信息，請參閱我們向 SEC 提交的文件，包括我們最新的 10-K 和 10-Q 表格、首席財務官評論和今天的收益發布。本次電話會議期間的所有前瞻性陳述均基於我們今天掌握的估計和信息，我們不承擔任何更新這些陳述的義務。

In addition, we will present certain non-GAAP measures, which should not be considered in isolation from or as a substitute for GAAP results. Reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP measures are included in today's earnings release. (Operator Instructions)

此外，我們將提出某些非 GAAP 衡量標準，這些衡量標準不應孤立於 GAAP 結果之外，也不應被視為 GAAP 結果的替代品。 GAAP 與非 GAAP 指標的調整包含在今天的收益發布中。 （操作員說明）

Now I'll turn the call over to Anirudh.

現在我將把電話轉給阿尼魯德。

Thank you, Richard. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm pleased to report that Cadence delivered strong results for the third quarter of 2023. We exceeded our Q3 guidance on all key metrics and are raising our outlook for 2023. John will provide more details on our financials shortly.

謝謝你，理查。大家下午好，感謝您今天加入我們。我很高興地向大家報告，Cadence 在2023 年第三季度取得了強勁的業績。我們在所有關鍵指標上都超出了第三季度的指導，並正在提高對2023 年的展望。約翰將很快提供有關我們財務狀況的更多詳細資訊。

Notwithstanding the macro uncertainties, design activity remains strong driven by transformative generational trends such as AI, hyperscale computing, 5G and autonomous driving. Growing hyper conversions between electrical and mechanical domain, systems and semis and hardware and software is driving the need for tightly integrated core design analysis solutions. Additionally, trends such as a growing number of 3D IC and chiplet design and system companies building custom silicon are accelerating. In this rapidly evolving design landscape, the relevance of AI-driven design automation cannot be overstated as it's enabling customers to accelerate their pace of innovation while enabling them to meet their targets more efficiently.

儘管存在宏觀不確定性，但在人工智慧、超大規模運算、5G 和自動駕駛等變革性世代趨勢的推動下，設計活動仍然強勁。電氣和機械領域、系統和半成品以及硬體和軟體之間不斷增長的超級轉換正在推動對緊密整合的核心設計分析解決方案的需求。此外，越來越多的 3D IC 和小晶片設計以及建構客製化晶片的系統公司等趨勢正在加速。在這個快速發展的設計環境中，人工智慧驅動的設計自動化的相關性怎麼強調都不為過，因為它使客戶能夠加快創新步伐，同時使他們能夠更有效地實現目標。

Over the past few years, we focused initially on incorporating powerful AI algorithms in our core engines and then build our generative AI solutions on top of our software platforms. We are seeing growing momentum for our comprehensive JedAI generative AI platform, with an increasing number of customers adopting these solutions and achieving exceptional quality of results and productivity gains. While still in the early stages, sales of our gen AI solutions have nearly tripled in the last year.

在過去的幾年裡，我們最初專注於將強大的人工智慧演算法融入我們的核心引擎中，然後在我們的軟體平台之上建立我們的生成式人工智慧解決方案。我們看到我們綜合性 JedAI 生成式人工智慧平台的成長勢頭不斷增長，越來越多的客戶採用這些解決方案並實現了卓越的結果品質和生產力提升。儘管仍處於早期階段，但我們的新一代人工智慧解決方案的銷售額在去年幾乎增加了兩倍。

Our solutions are enabling marquee AI infrastructure platform companies to deliver their next-generation compute, networking and memory products. Last quarter, we had referenced our successes with NVIDIA and Tesla. And this quarter, we are pleased to announce that Broadcom has accelerated the adoption of Cadence Cerebrus across multiple business units, achieving impressive quality of results. In Q3, we pioneered leveraging gen AI's LLM capabilities to chip design, successfully collaborating with Renesas on accelerating functional specification to final design. This is a key step in demonstrating the potential of LLMs to automate the translation of natural language specification to final chip design and verification tasks, thereby boosting their quality and efficiency.

我們的解決方案使知名人工智慧基礎設施平台公司能夠提供下一代運算、網路和記憶體產品。上個季度，我們提到了 NVIDIA 和 Tesla 的成功。本季度，我們很高興地宣布 Broadcom 已加速在多個業務部門採用 Cadence Cerebrus，取得了令人印象深刻的結果品質。在第三季度，我們率先利用 gen AI 的 LLM 功能進行晶片設計，並成功與瑞薩電子合作，加速功能規範到最終設計。這是展示法學碩士將自然語言規範自動翻譯為最終晶片設計和驗證任務的潛力的關鍵一步，從而提高其品質和效率。

We also renewed and deepened collaboration with some large semi and system customers in the 5G, AI, hyperscale and connectivity areas. For instance, we strengthened our long-standing partnership with a global marquee systems company through a significant expansion of our EDA software, hardware, design IP and system solutions. As the digital transformation in aerospace and defense accelerates, we continued our momentum by enhancing our core EDA and systems footprint with several customers, including 2 market-shaping companies.

我們也與一些大型半導體和系統客戶在 5G、人工智慧、超大規模和連接領域恢復並加深了合作。例如，我們透過大幅擴展我們的 EDA 軟體、硬體、設計 IP 和系統解決方案，加強了與全球大型系統公司的長期合作夥伴關係。隨著航空航太和國防數位轉型的加速，我們透過與包括兩家市場塑造公司在內的多家客戶增強核心 EDA 和系統足跡，繼續保持發展勢頭。

Now let me share some of the business highlights, starting with digital IC. With 11 new wins, our digital full flow, delivering industry's leading quality of results at the most advanced nodes, continued proliferating with market-shaping customers. We are very pleased with the accelerating momentum of our flagship Cadence Cerebrus gen AI solution whose transformative results have led to its deployment at all of our top 10 digital customers and in about 300 tape-outs to date. Imagination Technologies use Cadence Cerebrus and our digital full flow on its latest 5-nanometer GPU design in the cloud to achieve a 20% reduction in leakage power.

現在讓我分享一些業務亮點，首先是數位IC。憑藉 11 項新的勝利，我們的數位化全流程在最先進的節點上提供了行業領先的結果質量，並隨著市場塑造客戶的不斷增加而不斷增長。我們對我們的旗艦Cadence Cerebrus gen AI 解決方案的加速發展勢頭感到非常高興，該解決方案的變革性成果已導致其在我們所有排名前10 位的數位客戶中進行部署，迄今為止已進行了約300個流片。 Imagination Technologies 在其最新的雲端 5 奈米 GPU 設計上使用 Cadence Cerebrus 和我們的數位全流程，實現洩漏功率降低 20%。

Next, I will talk about our functional verification business which had another strong quarter with 18% year-over-year revenue growth. Ever growing system design complexity, coupled with the need for a first-time right silicon, continued to drive strong demand for our Palladium Z2 and Protium X2 hardware platforms that provide industry-leading system verification and software bring-up capability. Our hardware business had a record Q3 with close to half of the hardware orders, including both platforms.

接下來，我將談談我們的功能驗證業務，該業務另一個季度表現強勁，營收年增 18%。不斷增長的系統設計複雜性，加上對一次性正確晶片的需求，繼續推動對我們的 Palladium Z2 和 Protium X2 硬體平台的強勁需求，這些平台提供業界領先的系統驗證和軟體啟動功能。我們的硬體業務在第三季創下了歷史新高，接近一半的硬體訂單（包括兩個平台）。

Highlights for the quarter include a major dynamic duo expansion with a top AI and automotive chip supplier and a significant deal with the market-shaping data center chip company. Our flagship custom IC business continued to pave the way in analog innovation, delivering 15% year-over-year revenue growth.

本季的亮點包括與頂級人工智慧和汽車晶片供應商的重大動態雙雄擴張，以及與市場塑造資料中心晶片公司的重大交易。我們的旗艦客製化 IC 業務持續為類比創新鋪路，營收年增 15%。

We are pleased with the reception of our AI-driven Virtuoso Studio solution as several marquee customers adopted for their N2 and N3 design, and it has close to 1,000 downloads since its launch 6 months ago. And Nisshinbo Micro Devices utilize the Virtuoso Studio custom IC design platform to gain a 30% reduction in turnaround time for routing analog blocks.

我們很高興我們的人工智慧驅動的 Virtuoso Studio 解決方案受到了一些大客戶的 N2 和 N3 設計的歡迎，自 6 個月前推出以來，該解決方案的下載量已接近 1,000 次。 Nisshinbo Micro Devices 利用 Virtuoso Studio 客製化 IC 設計平台將類比模組佈線的周轉時間縮短了 30%。

In Q3, we continued investing in our IP business and closed the acquisition of the Rambus PHY IP assets. Customer reception has been overwhelmingly positive, to the addition of their HBM and GDDR IP, to our STAR Design IP portfolio. Design IP had a record booking quarter with strong AI and chiplet design activity, especially in the mobile, automotive and hyperscaler verticals. In addition, we launched our Tensilica Neo NPU IP and NeuroWeave software tools to accelerate on device and edge AI performance.

第三季度，我們繼續投資 IP 業務並完成了對 Rambus PHY IP 資產的收購。將他們的 HBM 和 GDDR IP 加入我們的 STAR Design IP 產品組合後，客戶的反應非常積極。 Design IP 的季度預訂量創歷史新高，人工智慧和小晶片設計活動強勁，尤其是在行動、汽車和超大規模垂直領域。此外，我們還推出了 Tensilica Neo NPU IP 和 NeuroWeave 軟體工具，以加速設備和邊緣 AI 性能。

Our system design and analysis business that is driving our expansion beyond EDA continued to deliver strong growth, increasing revenue by 20% year-over-year. On the PCB front, Allegro X AI has several successful engagements with market-shaping customers underway, and we announced OrCAD X, our next-generation AI-driven PCB design solution enabled by Cadence on-cloud and targeting small and medium businesses. Our Fidelity CFD platform continued its strong momentum with customers in automotive, aerospace and defense and industry verticals.

我們的系統設計和分析業務推動我們向 EDA 以外的領域擴展，繼續實現強勁成長，營收年增 20%。在 PCB 方面，Allegro X AI 與市場塑造客戶進行了多次成功的合作，我們發布了 OrCAD X，這是我們的下一代 AI 驅動的 PCB 設計解決方案，由 Cadence 雲端支持，針對中小型企業。我們的 Fidelity CFD 平台在汽車、航空航太、國防和垂直行業的客戶中繼續保持強勁勢頭。

In summary, I'm pleased with our team's continued innovation and execution. We are well positioned to benefit from the tremendous opportunities ahead as we help customers design their differentiated products with improved quality of results, productivity and shorter time to market.

總之，我對我們團隊的持續創新和執行力感到滿意。我們已做好充分準備，從未來的巨大機會中獲益，幫助客戶設計差異化產品，提高結果品質、生產力並縮短上市時間。

I did want to take a moment to comment on the unfolding conflict in the Middle East. The ongoing violence and loss of innocent life is truly heartbreaking and a matter of global concern. The well-being of our employees and their families in the region is of utmost importance to us. And we continue doing everything we can to support them. Our thoughts are with everyone who has family, friends and loved ones there, and we are helping out by providing humanitarian aid through the Cadence giving foundation.

我確實想花點時間評論中東正在發生的衝突。持續不斷的暴力和無辜生命的喪失確實令人心碎，也是全球關注的問題。該地區員工及其家人的福祉對我們來說至關重要。我們將繼續竭盡全力支持他們。我們的心與那裡有家人、朋友和親人的每個人同在，我們正在透過 Cadence 捐贈基金會提供人道主義援助來提供幫助。

John will now go through the Q3 results and present our Q4 and updated 2023 outlook.

約翰現在將查看第三季的結果，並介紹我們的第四季和更新的 2023 年展望。

Thanks, Anirudh, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm pleased to report that Cadence delivered another strong quarter of top and bottom line results in Q3. All businesses contributed to revenue growth, and we completed more hardware installations in Q3 than we originally assumed.

謝謝阿尼魯德，大家午安。我很高興地向大家報告，Cadence 在第三季再次實現了強勁的季度營收和淨利潤業績。所有業務都對收入成長做出了貢獻，我們在第三季完成的硬體安裝比我們最初假設的要多。

Here are some of the financial highlights from the third quarter, starting with the P&L. Total revenue was $1.023 billion, GAAP operating margin was 28.6% and non-GAAP operating margin was 41.1%. GAAP EPS was $0.93 and non-GAAP EPS was $1.26.

以下是第三季的一些財務亮點，從損益表開始。總收入為 10.23 億美元，GAAP 營運利潤率為 28.6%，非 GAAP 營運利潤率為 41.1%。 GAAP 每股收益為 0.93 美元，非 GAAP 每股收益為 1.26 美元。

Next, turning to the balance sheet and cash flow. Cash balance at quarter end was $962 million, while the principal value of debt outstanding was $650 million. Operating cash flow was $396 million, and we used $125 million to repurchase Cadence shares in Q3.

接下來，轉向資產負債表和現金流量。季末現金餘額為 9.62 億美元，未償債務本金為 6.5 億美元。營運現金流為 3.96 億美元，第三季我們用 1.25 億美元回購了 Cadence 股票。

Before I provide our updated outlook, I'd like to highlight that our outlook contains the usual assumption that export control regulations that exist today remain substantially similar for the remainder of the year.

在提供最新的展望之前，我想強調的是，我們的展望包含通常的假設，即目前存在的出口管制法規在今年剩餘時間內保持基本相似。

Our updated outlook for fiscal 2023 is revenue in the range of $4.06 billion to $4.1 billion, GAAP operating margin in the range of 30.5% to 31%, non-GAAP operating margin in the range of 41.5% to 42%, GAAP EPS in the range of $3.48 to $3.54, non-GAAP EPS in the range of $5.07 to $5.13, operating cash flow in the range of $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion, and we expect to use at least 50% of our annual free cash flow to repurchase Cadence shares.

我們對2023 財年的最新展望是，營收在40.6 億美元至41 億美元之間，GAAP 營業利潤率在30.5% 至31% 範圍內，非GAAP 營業利潤率在41.5% 至42% 範圍內，GAAP每股盈餘介於 3.48 至 3.54 美元，非 GAAP 每股盈餘為 5.07 至 5.13 美元，營運現金流為 13 億至 14 億美元，我們預計將使用至少 50% 的年度自由現金流來回購 Cadence 股票。

As a result, for Q4, we expect revenue in the range of $1.039 billion to $1.079 billion, GAAP operating margin of approximately 31%, non-GAAP operating margin of approximately 42%, GAAP EPS in the range of $0.85 to $0.91, non-GAAP EPS in the range of $1.30 to $1.36, and we expect to use approximately $125 million of cash to repurchase Cadence shares.

因此，我們預計第四季度營收將在10.39 億美元至10.79 億美元之間，GAAP 營業利潤率約為31%，非GAAP 營業利潤率約為42%，GAAP 每股收益在0.85 美元至0.91 美元之間，非GAAP 每股盈餘在 1.30 美元至 1.36 美元之間，我們預計將使用約 1.25 億美元現金回購 Cadence 股票。

As usual, we've published a CFO commentary document on our Investor Relations website, which includes our outlook for additional items as well as further analysis and GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations.

與往常一樣，我們在投資者關係網站上發布了首席財務官評論文件，其中包括我們對其他項目的展望以及進一步的分析以及 GAAP 與非 GAAP 調節。

In summary, we are on track to deliver a strong 2023. I am pleased with our team's continued execution of our intelligent system design strategy. With our updated outlook for 2023, at the midpoint, we now expect revenue growth of approximately 15%; non-GAAP operating margin of approximately 41.75%, a seventh consecutive year of greater than 50% incremental operating margin; and non-GAAP EPS of $5.10, a sixth consecutive year of high teen or better non-GAAP EPS growth.

總之，我們預計在 2023 年實現強勁的業績。我對我們​​的團隊繼續執行我們的智慧系統設計策略感到高興。根據我們對 2023 年中期的最新展望，我們現在預期營收成長約為 15%；非公認會計準則營業利益率約 41.75%，連續第七年營業利益增加超過 50%；非 GAAP 每股收益為 5.10 美元，連續第六年實現非 GAAP 每股收益高十位數或更好的成長。

As always, I'd like to close by thanking our customers, partners and our employees for their continued support.

像往常一樣，我想最後感謝我們的客戶、合作夥伴和員工的持續支持。

And with that, operator, we will now take questions.

接線員，我們現在開始提問。

(Operator Instructions) And your first question comes from Charles Shi at Needham.

（操作員說明）您的第一個問題來自李約瑟的 Charles Shi。

I want to ask you a little bit about the backlog. It looks like the backlog compared with last quarter was up. I mean the September quarter kind of implies very good bookings for September quarter. I just want to ask, do you see the backlog will continue to grow into the year-end? Because you talked about the second half booking strength, I want to see where it goes from here.

我想問你一些關於積壓的問題。與上季相比，積壓訂單似乎有所增加。我的意思是，九月季度意味著九月季度的預訂量非常好。我只是想問一下，您認為積壓的訂單會持續成長到年底嗎？因為你談到了下半年的預訂量，我想看看接下來的情況如何。

Yes, Charles. Thanks for the question. And thanks for remembering what we said last quarter, yes, we expect a very strong second half for bookings and Q4 is exceptionally strong. So our expectations for bookings is very, very strong Q4.

是的，查爾斯。謝謝你的提問。感謝您還記得我們上季度所說的話，是的，我們預計下半年的預訂量將非常強勁，而第四季度的預訂量將異常強勁。因此，我們對第四季度預訂的預期非常非常強烈。

Maybe I want to ask one quick follow-up. You kind of raised your full year revenue outlook a little bit less than you beat the Q3 in terms of revenue. It kind of implies that your full year outlook you provided one quarter ago was largely accurate, but there seems to be some timing shift for the revenue, I mean, pulling in from Q4, Q3. Was that related to your comment about hardware installation, the timing of that?

也許我想快速詢問一下。您對全年營收預期的上調幅度略低於第三季的營收水準。這有點意味著您在一個季度前提供的全年展望基本上是準確的，但收入似乎有一些時間上的轉變，我的意思是，從第四季度、第三季度開始。這與您對硬體安裝的評論及其時間安排有關嗎？

That's right, Charles. In hindsight now, I was a little too prudent in the Q3 guide with respect to hardware installations that we're scheduled in China around the end of September. If you recall, in our guide, we assumed that those installations would fall into Q4. In actual fact, we completed those hardware installations, and the second half looks stronger than we thought this time last quarter. But even with all of those hardware, we kind of beat our expectations in Q3, and Q4 is higher than we thought.

沒錯，查爾斯。現在回想起來，我在第三季指南中對於我們計劃於 9 月底左右在中國進行的硬體安裝有點過於謹慎。如果您還記得，在我們的指南中，我們假設這些安裝將屬於第四季。事實上，我們已經完成了這些硬體安裝，下半年看起來比我們上季這個時候想像的還要強。但即使有了所有這些硬件，我們在第三季度的表現還是超出了我們的預期，而第四季度的表現也比我們想像的要高。

The next now is Gianmarco Conti at Deutsche Bank.

下一個是德意志銀行的吉安馬科·孔蒂 (Gianmarco Conti)。

I guess my first one would be, when do you expect to be giving more AI KPIs, whether on contract value uplift or penetration rates? Just any color you can provide as to how can we quantify the AI tailwind in your numbers and whether we are going to see this coming through in bookings in sometime.

我想我的第一個問題是，您預計什麼時候提供更多的人工智慧 KPI，無論是合約價值提升還是滲透率？您可以提供任何顏色，說明我們如何量化您的數據中的人工智慧推動力，以及我們是否會在某個時候在預訂中看到這一點。

It's Anirudh. Let me take that. So like we mentioned in the prepared remarks, we are seeing a lot of activity in AI, and that's a multiple customer and multiple verticals, so whether it's the system company designing their own chips or, of course, the semiconductor companies designing it or, we mentioned this time, for example, Broadcom, which helps other companies design it. So we are participating in the AI kind of design process in all 3 ways. And last time we talked about NVIDIA and Tesla. And then on top of that, it's also applying AI to our own products. And then we have these extra generative AI products on top of our base products that also drives revenue.

這是阿尼魯德。讓我來吧。因此，就像我們在準備好的評論中提到的那樣，我們看到人工智慧領域有很多活動，這是多個客戶和多個垂直領域，所以無論是設計自己晶片的系統公司，當然還是設計晶片的半導體公司，我們這次提到的，比如說Broadcom，它是幫助其他公司設計的。因此，我們以三種方式參與人工智慧設計過程。上次我們談到了 NVIDIA 和 Tesla。除此之外，它也將人工智慧應用到我們自己的產品中。然後，我們在基礎產品之上還有這些額外的生成式人工智慧產品，這也能推動收入。

So the first part, which is build-out of the AI infrastructure whether it's with, of course, large semi companies like NVIDIA or like large system companies like Tesla or companies like Broadcom, I mean that's a big part of our business. We don't break that out specifically because it's sometimes difficult to figure out exactly what part of a customer's business is AI or not, and we don't want to be in that kind of try to guess what part of our what the customers are using for. But AI is a significant portion of design activity and the build-out that's going to happen for years, okay?

因此，第一部分是人工智慧基礎設施的構建，當然，無論是與NVIDIA 這樣的大型半導體公司合作，還是像特斯拉這樣的大型系統公司或博通這樣的公司合作，我的意思是，這是我們業務的重要組成部分。我們沒有具體說明這一點，因為有時很難準確地弄清楚客戶業務的哪一部分是人工智能或不是，而且我們不想嘗試猜測客戶業務的哪一部分用於.但人工智慧是設計活動和擴建的重要組成部分，這將持續數年，好嗎？

Now there is a second part of our business in which we are selling AI products ourselves, like Cerebrus and Verisium, our JedAI platform which has 5 main products. So in that segment, if our own software products and IP products are AI-enabled, so in that, we did comment that even though it's early in the process, our revenue from our own AI products has almost tripled from a year ago. So we are very pleased with that progress. So I just wanted to highlight that and also say there's another part of AI, which is the build-out of infrastructure, which is more difficult to predict.

現在我們的第二部分業務是我們自己銷售人工智慧產品，例如 Cerebrus 和 Verisium，我們的 JedAI 平台有 5 個主要產品。所以在這個領域，如果我們自己的軟體產品和IP產品是支援人工智慧的，那麼我們確實評論說，儘管現在還處於這個過程的早期，但我們自己的人工智慧產品的收入幾乎比一年前增加了兩倍。因此，我們對這一進展感到非常滿意。所以我只是想強調這一點，並指出人工智慧的另一部分，即基礎設施的建設，這是更難以預測的。

And Gian, I would just add to that, when Anirudh called out that the revenue from those products has almost tripled in the space of 12 months, we're not reclassifying any revenue. This is direct revenue attributable to those 5 products that we have in our JedAI platform.

Gian，我想補充一點，當 Anirudh 指出這些產品的收入在 12 個月內幾乎增加了兩倍時，我們不會對任何收入進行重新分類。這是我們 JedAI 平台上這 5 種產品的直接收入。

That's really good. I just have a follow-up, perhaps talking a little bit on China. If you could comment on whether there is any impact from the entity list and the new rules coming to place. And also, if you had any visibility into Chinese customers and in trying to understand whether you actually know whether they're designing more mature versus advanced nodes. I feel like there's been a lot of conversation around whether there is a way to track whether EDA tools are being used in China for mature versus advanced nodes. Any color on this would be great.

這非常好。我只是有一個後續行動，也許會談談中國。您能否評論一下實體清單和即將實施的新規則是否會產生任何影響？而且，如果您對中國客戶有任何了解，並試圖了解您是否真的知道他們是否正在設計更成熟的節點而不是先進的節點。我覺得關於是否有一種方法可以追蹤 EDA 工具在中國是否用於成熟節點和先進節點，已經有很多討論。任何顏色都會很棒。

Yes, that's a good question because there were a lot of recent reports on some of the changes in regulation. So for us, there's not that much difference. Most of the regulations were targeted at some chip companies or manufacturing companies. As you know, we are in the design process. So those regulations, the latest round doesn't have a big effect on Cadence business.

是的，這是一個很好的問題，因為最近有很多關於監管變化的報導。所以對我們來說，沒有太大差別。大部分規定都是針對一些晶片公司或製造公司。如您所知，我們正在設計過程中。因此，最新一輪的這些規定並沒有對 Cadence 業務產生太大影響。

Now there are some companies added to the entity list, so we monitor that carefully. But since we are so diversified geographically and, in terms of customers, that's not a significant impact either. And all our guidance that we just gave includes the impact of all these regulations that were announced recently. And of course, we carefully follow all U.S. regulation. But the latest change is not that material to our business.

現在有一些公司被加入到實體名單中，所以我們會仔細監控。但由於我們的地理位置如此多元化，就客戶而言，這也不是重大影響。我們剛剛提供的所有指導都包括最近宣布的所有這些法規的影響。當然，我們會嚴格遵守美國的所有法規。但最新的變化對我們的業務來說並不重要。

We'll go next now to Harlan Sur at JPMorgan.

接下來我們將前往摩根大通的哈蘭蘇爾。

Macro conditions in the semiconductor industry are still fairly muted. We're close to a cyclical bottom, but recovery seems more gradual than expected across many different end markets, right? Accelerated computing in AI are strong. Auto, industrial, enterprise service provider market is still relatively soft. So across some metrics that you track, renewals, hardware buys, IP take rates, is the team seeing any signs of hesitation or pushouts across your different customers or different businesses?

半導體產業的宏觀狀況仍然相當低迷。我們已接近週期性底部，但許多不同終端市場的復甦似乎比預期更為漸進，對嗎？人工智慧中的加速運算很強大。汽車、工業、企業服務商市場依然相對疲軟。那麼，在您追蹤的一些指標（續約、硬體購買、IP 佔用率）中，團隊是否發現不同客戶或不同業務有任何猶豫或排斥的跡象？

Yes, Harlan, that's a good question. Like we mentioned last time, we still see a lot of strong design activity. And I would say, compared to like 3 months ago, I would say the activity is similar. Like you mentioned, some segments are going through tough times and then some segments like accelerated compute and AI have a lot of growth. But overall, as you know, these products that our customers are designing take several years to develop, and we are part of the R&D cycle. So what we see is the customers still investing in R&D or building our products for the future, and we are glad to partner with them. So I think I would say that largely, the environment is similar than it was like a few months ago. Yes.

是的，哈倫，這是個好問題。就像我們上次提到的，我們仍然看到很多強大的設計活動。我想說，與 3 個月前相比，我會說活動是相似的。正如您所提到的，一些細分市場正在經歷艱難時期，而加速運算和人工智慧等一些細分市場則出現了很大的成長。但總的來說，如您所知，我們的客戶正在設計的這些產品需要幾年的時間來開發，而我們是研發週期的一部分。因此，我們看到客戶仍在投資研發或為未來打造我們的產品，我們很高興與他們合作。所以我想我會說，很大程度上，環境與幾個月前相似。是的。

Yes, absolutely. And on the hardware side, we're producing hardware as fast as we were all year. And you can see in our 10-Q that we filed today that the value of finished goods and our inventory was less than $10 million at the end of the quarter in Q3, so the demand is really strong still and we're just producing the hardware as quickly as we can. We're expecting a very strong Q4 as well for our IP group. I mean they're delivering a number of silicon solutions to our customers in Q4. And I think that sets up a really strong quarter for that group, but we were expecting that all year.

是的，一點沒錯。在硬體方面，我們生產硬體的速度與全年一樣快。您可以在我們今天提交的 10-Q 報告中看到，截至第三季末，成品和庫存的價值不到 1000 萬美元，因此需求仍然非常強勁，我們只是生產盡快開發硬體。我們預計我們的知識產權部門第四季也將表現強勁。我的意思是他們在第四季度向我們的客戶提供了許多晶片解決方案。我認為這為該集團創造了一個非常強勁的季度，但我們全年都在期待這一點。

Yes. No, I appreciate the comments there. One of your large AI SoC customer has recently laid out their future road maps, right? And given the complexity of all these next-generation AI compute workloads, right, they're actually accelerating their chip road maps, so new GPU chip every year versus every 2 years, which was their prior cadence. And then on top of that, they're starting to segment their product lines, right, so not only accelerating road maps with more chips per product family. I've got to believe that other competitors in this space are doing exactly the same thing. Are you guys seeing the step-up in design activity? Obviously, much higher productivity is required. So how is this all being sort of reflected in the business momentum and your visibility?

是的。不，我很欣賞那裡的評論。您的一位大型 AI SoC 客戶最近規劃了他們的未來路線圖，對嗎？考慮到所有這些下一代人工智慧運算工作負載的複雜性，他們實際上正在加速他們的晶片路線圖，因此每年都會推出新的 GPU 晶片，而不是每兩年一次，這是他們之前的節奏。最重要的是，他們開始細分他們的產品線，對吧，這不僅可以加快路線圖，為每個產品系列提供更多晶片。我必須相信這個領域的其他競爭對手也在做同樣的事情。你們看到設計活動的進步了嗎？顯然，需要更高的生產力。那麼，這一切是如何反映在業務動能和您的知名度上的呢？

Yes, good point. I mean like you said earlier, the macro environment is challenging, especially some of the segments are weaker, some are stronger. But design activity is very strong. And especially, I would say, in two verticals for the future, for the future of the semi and the system business, at least the two very, very strong verticals in terms of design activity is data center and AI and then automotive given the electrification and the massive transformation that's happening. So if you look at even -- you know this anyway, Harlan, if you look at for the next 3, 4 years, these two segments will grow significantly, the whole AI-driven data centers and automotive.

是的，好點。我的意思是，就像您之前所說的那樣，宏觀環境充滿挑戰，特別是有些細分市場較弱，有些細分市場較強。但設計活動非常活躍。特別是，我想說，在未來的兩個垂直領域，對於半成品和系統業務的未來，至少在設計活動方面兩個非常非常強大的垂直領域是資料中心和人工智慧，然後是考慮到電氣化的汽車以及正在發生的巨大轉變。因此，如果你看看——無論如何，你知道這一點，Harlan，如果你看看未來 3、4 年，這兩個細分市場將顯著成長，整個人工智慧驅動的資料中心和汽車。

And because they are growing so -- first of all, the cadence of those end customer products is increasing, and also they need to be more and more efficient given the design activity and complexity is going up. So there is more design activity and also use of AI to accelerate and be more productive, and even we are using AI internally to be more productive ourselves. So definitely for these two big, big verticals -- and this is a multiyear trend. This is not a -- and you mentioned some of our large customers, we are very fortunate to work with. We always say we want to win with the winners, and we always focus on the leading companies in the data center and AI space and also now in the automotive space. So that activity is strong, and I expect that to continue.

因為它們正在成長——首先，這些最終客戶產品的節奏正在增加，考慮到設計活動和複雜性的增加，它們也需要變得越來越有效率。因此，有更多的設計活動以及人工智慧的使用來加速和提高生產力，甚至我們也在內部使用人工智慧來提高我們自己的生產力。因此，對於這兩個非常非常大的垂直產業來說，這是一個多年的趨勢。這不是——你提到了我們的一些大客戶，我們非常幸運能夠與之合作。我們總是說我們希望與贏家共贏，我們始終關注資料中心和人工智慧領域以及現在汽車領域的領先公司。因此，這種活動很強勁，我預計這種情況會持續下去。

We'll go next now to Gary Mobley at Wells Fargo.

接下來我們將採訪富國銀行的加里‧莫布里。

John, your upfront license revenue year-to-date has averaged around 17%. I think typically, it's 15%. Given where you're at in the verification hardware product cycles, Z2 and X2 and the conversion of the backlog there, how do you see that upfront revenue trending, looking into next year? And related to that, how would you see the influence on overall growth next year?

John，今年迄今為止，您的預付費用授權收入平均約為 17%。我認為通常是 15%。考慮到您在驗證硬體產品週期、Z2 和 X2 中所處的位置以及那裡積壓訂單的轉換，您如何看待明年的前期收入趨勢？與此相關，您如何看待這對明年整體成長的影響？

Yes. Great question, Gary. I mean we're always watching that carefully. As you know, last year, the upfront piece ticked up to 15%. This year, I think in the 10-Q, if you look over on a rolling 4-quarter basis to the end of Q3, it's at 16% now. But I think your point is probably closer to 17% for the first 3 quarters. But I think that's a reflection of the strength of hardware on the ratable and recurring part of the business, although that's 84% of the trailing 12-month revenue. If you look at our guide at $4.080 billion, I mean, we're assuming essentially about a 13% growth rate on a current revenue line for the year. But that's consistent with like, over a 3-year CAGR basis, it's about 13% as well. Of course, we're not guiding next year.

是的。好問題，加里。我的意思是我們一直在仔細觀察。如您所知，去年預付款上漲了 15%。我認為今年第 10 季度，如果你以 4 個季度為基礎滾動觀察到第 3 季末，現在的成長率為 16%。但我認為你的觀點可能更接近前 3 個季度的 17%。但我認為這反映了硬體在可評級和經常性業務部分的實力，儘管這佔過去 12 個月收入的 84%。如果您查看我們的 40.8 億美元指南，我的意思是，我們基本上假設今年當前收入線的成長率約為 13%。但這與 3 年複合年增長率一致，約 13%。當然，我們不會指導明年。

Understood. All right. I suspect that we're not going to get any more AI metrics out of you en route, but maybe if you can just give us a sense of where we're at in the commercialization of the 5 different AI tools. Have to working their way in the baseline license renewals? Or are they still on a per design basis and maybe gives a sense of where you expect them to cut into baseline licensing activity?

明白了。好的。我懷疑我們不會再從你那裡得到任何更多的人工智慧指標，但也許你能讓我們了解我們在 5 種不同人工智慧工具的商業化方面的進展。必須在基線許可證續訂中努力工作嗎？或者它們仍然以每個設計為基礎，並可能讓您了解您期望它們在基線許可活動中切入哪些方面？

Yes, Gary, that's a good point. So we are watching that carefully, of course. And as you know, like these JedAI and these 5 major platforms are new products that our customers should engage with us on and they run on top of our existing kind of leading platforms. So it depends on the customers. I would still say we are still in the early stages of the adoption of these AI products because, as you know, any of these new software tools take years to fully deploy it, right? I mean this sort of happens in digital or in any major kind of platform releases we do. So even though we are like 2 years into it, I think it will still take some time to fully deploy these products.

是的，加里，這是一個很好的觀點。當然，我們正在仔細觀察。如您所知，像這些 JedAI 和這 5 個主要平台都是我們的客戶應該與我們互動的新產品，它們運行在我們現有的領先平台之上。所以這取決於客戶。我仍然想說，我們仍處於採用這些人工智慧產品的早期階段，因為如您所知，任何這些新軟體工具都需要數年時間才能完全部署，對嗎？我的意思是這種情況發生在數位或我們所做的任何主要平台版本中。因此，儘管我們已經投入了大約兩年的時間，但我認為完全部署這些產品仍然需要一些時間。

And what we have said in the past is typically, at least in my experience with digital like about 7, 8 years ago, it took like 2 contract cycles for them to fully deploy, okay? So that's still 3, 4 years to go, probably like 2, 3 years into it and still 3, 4 years to go, which is a good thing in my mind because this is natural progress of deployment. Now it depends on the customer. Some customers are adopting them in a much bigger way, especially like in the previous discussion, the new kind of AI design or hyperscalers, there is like an improved cadence of design activity. So they are adopting them maybe a little faster than some of the other verticals. So it just depends on -- some are still on like -- tried on few designs or a few groups. But we have seen some pretty broad kind of deployments, and that helps our overall engagement with that particular customer.

我們過去所說的是，至少根據我大約 7、8 年前的數位經驗，通常需要 2 個合約週期才能完全部署，好嗎？因此，還需要 3、4 年時間，可能還需要 2、3 年時間，而且還需要 3、4 年時間，這在我看來是一件好事，因為這是部署的自然進展。現在這取決於客戶。一些客戶正在以更大的方式採用它們，特別是像之前的討論中那樣，新型人工智慧設計或超大規模設計，設計活動的節奏有所改善。因此，他們採用這些技術的速度可能比其他一些垂直行業要快一些。所以這只是取決於——有些仍然是這樣的——嘗試過少數設計或少數群體。但我們已經看到了一些相當廣泛的部署，這有助於我們與特定客戶的整體互動。

So that's what I would like to say, Gary. I think it's still early, but what good thing -- I think we mentioned in the prepared remarks that all top customers are now fully engaged and some of the results are truly remarkable. Actually, I was talking to one major customer recently, and they are getting like 8% to 10% power improvement from Cerebrus, okay? And we have mentioned several of these in the past also. I mean that's a huge improvement. Sometimes that's the equivalent or roughly an equivalent to a node migration. Typically, you go from one node to another, you may get like 10% to 15% PPA improvement, and you're getting close to that or roughly 2/3 of that from better AI tools.

這就是我想說的，加里。我認為現在還為時過早，但這是一件多麼好的事情——我想我們在準備好的發言中提到，所有頂級客戶現在都充分參與其中，並且一些結果確實令人矚目。事實上，我最近與一位主要客戶交談，他們從 Cerebrus 獲得了 8% 到 10% 的功率改進，好嗎？我們過去也提到過其中的幾個。我的意思是這是一個巨大的進步。有時這相當於或大致相當於節點遷移。通常，您從一個節點轉到另一個節點，您可能會獲得 10% 到 15% 的 PPA 改進，並且透過更好的 AI 工具，您已經接近這一水平或大約 2/3。

So the value is there. And that's what we are focused on, make sure the products really provide value and then work with the customers in the pace of deployment that they want to see because it's a natural process to try some and then deploy. But some of them are doing it much faster, like I mentioned.

所以價值就在那裡。這就是我們關注的重點，確保產品真正提供價值，然後按照客戶希望看到的部署速度與客戶合作，因為嘗試一些產品然後進行部署是一個自然的過程。但正如我所提到的，他們中的一些人做得更快。

We'll go next now to Jay Vleeschhouwer at Griffin Securities.

接下來我們請來格里芬證券公司的 Jay Vleeschhouwer。

For my first question, I'd like to ask a variant of the EDA market environment question. So on the one hand, what are you seeing in terms of unscheduled new business, that is to say, intra-contract, new or expansion business that could be construed positively? On the other hand, how concerned are you about the evident deceleration of semi R&D growth? It's still reasonably good, better than 4 or 5 years ago, but so much slower than it's been. A lot of that can be attributable to Intel. But still, how are you thinking about those two different dynamics? And then I'll ask a follow-up.

對於第一個問題，我想問一個 EDA 市場環境問題的變體。一方面，您對計劃外新業務（即合約內業務、新業務或擴張業務）有何看法？另一方面，您對半研發成長明顯放緩有多擔心？它仍然相當不錯，比四五年前要好，但比以前慢了很多。這在很大程度上要歸功於英特爾。但是，您如何看待這兩種不同的動態？然後我會問後續情況。

Yes, Jay, good question. I mean we are watching it carefully. Like you said -- like we said earlier, I mean, design activity is still strong. But of course, the macro environment is challenging. It's like natural -- even though the customers realize that they need to invest in R&D for the future, if the revenue is impacted because of macro situations, that decision becomes a lot more prudent, so this is just natural business process. But in general, still the large customers in the big segment, they're all investing in R&D. Design activity is still strong. And then we just have to see -- we had a good Q3 in terms of bookings, like we mentioned. So we'll see what happens in Q4, and that will also give us a better idea going forward.

是的，傑伊，好問題。我的意思是我們正在仔細觀察。就像你說的——就像我們之前說的，我的意思是，設計活動仍然很活躍。但當然，宏觀環境充滿挑戰。這很自然——即使客戶意識到他們需要為未來進行研發投資，但如果收入因宏觀情況而受到影響，那麼這個決定就會變得更加謹慎，所以這只是自然的業務流程。但總的來說，仍然是大細分市場的大客戶，他們都在研發方面進行投資。設計活動依然強勁。然後我們只需要看看——正如我們所提到的，我們在第三季的預訂方面表現出色。因此，我們將看看第四季度會發生什麼，這也將為我們提供更好的未來想法。

Jay, as you know, a lot of our customers come back and purchase add-ons during the course of their baseline contracts. And with the teams releasing significantly new business -- new products from the different R&D groups, customers have an intent to come back and keep purchasing. So they don't wait -- when we launch AI tools, they don't wait for the baseline renewal to come up or to expire to purchase them. They'll purchase add-ons and they'll purchase a few licenses and then hopefully proliferate more on the contract renewal. And as you know, we have a lot of contracts that come up for renewal in Q4.

傑伊，如您所知，我們的許多客戶都會在基準合約期間回來購買附加組件。隨著團隊發布重要的新業務—來自不同研發團隊的新產品，客戶有回頭客並繼續購買的意願。所以他們不會等待——當我們推出人工智慧工具時，他們不會等到基準更新出現或到期才購買它們。他們將購買附加組件，購買一些許可證，然後希望在合約續約時增加更多。如您所知，我們有很多合約需要在第四季度續約。

Understood. For a follow-up, I'll ask about some interesting Cadence management comments at last month's Cadence Live event up in Boston. So there was an interesting comment about the role of AI as "derisking schedules" in addition to the design exploration use case. And what's interesting there is historically schedule risk or completion risk has to do more towards the back end of the process, for example, physical verification. So to the extent that more of that risk mitigation moves up earlier in the process, do you think that there will be a spending share shift within the totality of EDA spend, perhaps some from the back end more towards the front end where you play with a lot of your tools?

明白了。作為後續行動，我將詢問上個月在波士頓舉行的 Cadence Live 活動中一些有趣的 Cadence 管理層評論。因此，除了設計探索用例之外，還有一個關於人工智慧作為「去風險時間表」的作用的有趣評論。有趣的是，從歷史上看，進度風險或完成風險必須在流程的後端做更多的事情，例如實體驗證。因此，如果更多的風險緩解措施在流程的早期階段推進，您是否認為 EDA 支出總量中的支出份額會發生變化，也許一些支出會從後端更多地轉向您所使用的前端你的工具很多嗎？

Jay, I would say that it should lead to more design activity if we are able to reduce risk in the design process. I mean, as you know, this is the history of EDA, history of automation, even for the last 20, 30 years. I remember in the old days, in the '90s, we would take like 5 years and 500 engineers to design some big chip. And now that takes 6 to 12 months and maybe 50 engineers. So that's like 100x more efficient than 25 years ago. And I think AI can, as you know, provide the next generation, next level of improvement in productivity and risk mitigation. I mean, part of it is also risk mitigation. So then I think it should lead to more design activity, especially by the system company. .

Jay，我想說，如果我們能夠降低設計過程中的風險，那麼應該會帶來更多的設計活動。我的意思是，如你所知，這是 EDA 的歷史，自動化的歷史，甚至是過去 20、30 年的歷史。我記得在過去，在 90 年代，我們需要大約 5 年和 500 名工程師來設計一些大型晶片。現在這需要 6 到 12 個月的時間，可能還需要 50 名工程師。因此，效率比 25 年前提高了 100 倍。如你所知，我認為人工智慧可以在生產力和風險緩解方面提供下一代、更高水準的改進。我的意思是，其中一部分也是為了緩解風險。所以我認為這應該會導致更多的設計活動，特別是系統公司的設計活動。 。

Now the shift of front end to back end, I mean I think back end is still a complicated process. And so I think even though some of the things can be pulled upfront using AI or using hardware platforms, I still think the back-end design process requires a lot of work. So I would expect it affects all of them.

現在從前端到後端的轉變，我的意思是我認為後端仍然是一個複雜的過程。因此，我認為，儘管有些事情可以使用人工智慧或硬體平台預先完成，但我仍然認為後端設計過程需要大量工作。所以我預計它會影響所有人。

And then the other thing we are trying to do on the front end, as you may have noticed, is really incorporate LLMs like our partnership with Renesas. Because all the front-end process has been less formal, the back-end process, especially once we have RTL, then we go to gates, we go to GDS, is a very formal process, very structured process. But the front end of the process, especially verification and specification, has been less formalized. And I think AI and LLM can help formalize that which definitely, like you said, can minimize the risk. But I think activity should still be strong in both front end and back end. And our goal anyway is to make the design easier, so more customers and more people can do them.

正如您可能已經註意到的那樣，我們在前端嘗試做的另一件事是真正合併法學碩士，就像我們與瑞薩電子的合作夥伴關係一樣。因為所有的前端流程都不太正式，後端流程，特別是一旦我們有了RTL，然後我們去蓋茨，我們去GDS，是一個非常正式的流程，非常結構化的流程。但流程的前端，尤其是驗證和規範，還不太正式。我認為人工智慧和法學碩士可以幫助形式化，正如你所說，這肯定可以最大限度地降低風險。但我認為前端和後端的活動應該仍然很強勁。無論如何，我們的目標是讓設計變得更容易，以便更多的客戶和更多的人可以做到這一點。

We'll go next now to Jason Celino at KeyBanc Capital Markets.

接下來我們請聽聽 KeyBanc Capital Markets 的 Jason Celino。

Maybe first for John, on the Q4 guide, apologies for asking this again, but folks might be wondering tomorrow, I guess, why aren't we seeing more upside to the guide for fourth quarter. Where might be some conservatism? Or what will you be overlooking in terms of the setup?

也許首先對約翰來說，關於第四季度的指南，我很抱歉再次詢問這個問題，但我猜，明天人們可能會想，為什麼我們沒有看到第四季度指南的更多好處。哪裡可能有一些保守主義？或者在設定方面您會忽略什麼？

Yes, Jason, as you know, your question probably emanates from the fact that we beat by $23 million in Q3 and raised by $10 million, but that was mainly due to a prudent guide for Q3 with respect to certain hardware installations. I think overall, we've taken the quarter up -- the year up by $10 million at the midpoint. But I think there's -- because it's expected to be a strong bookings quarter and a particularly strong quarter for our IP silicon solutions group that -- I mean they're having -- they're going to have an excellent Q4, but we're expecting that all year. I think if there's upside, it will probably come from that group.

是的，傑森，正如你所知，你的問題可能源於我們在第三季度擊敗了2300 萬美元並籌集了1000 萬美元的事實，但這主要是由於第三季度對某些硬體安裝的謹慎指導。我認為總體而言，我們本季的營收成長了 1,000 萬美元，年中成長了 1,000 萬美元。但我認為，因為預計預訂季度將非常強勁，對於我們的 IP 晶片解決方案團隊來說，這個季度尤其強勁，我的意思是他們將擁有出色的第四季度業績，但我們'我們一整年都在期待著這一點。我認為如果有好處的話，很可能會來自這個群體。

Okay. No, that's fair. And then just my quick follow-up on backlog, I know you've got some weird comps because of the hardware stuff. But when might we see like year-over-year growth again? Or I guess, if we stripped out the hardware-related backlog, I don't know if there's any way to share what type of growth you might be seeing.

好的。不，這很公平。然後我對積壓工作進行了快速跟進，我知道由於硬體問題，你們有一些奇怪的比較。但我們什麼時候才能再次看到年成長呢？或者我想，如果我們去掉與硬體相關的積壓工作，我不知道是否有任何方法可以分享您可能會看到的成長類型。

Yes. I think just to give you a bit of color on that, I think if you recall, at the end of last year, our backlog included about 28 weeks of lead time on hardware. I think we're down to an 8- to 10-week range now on lead time for hardware. So of course, we've eaten some backlog as a result of that. But I think we troughed out essentially in the middle of the year. We're expecting the second half to be stronger for contract renewals because the number of contracts expired in the second half. In Q3, you saw backlog starting to tick back up again, we'd expect it to tick back up again in Q4 because we have a strong bookings quarter. We're expecting a strong bookings quarter.

是的。我想只是為了讓您對此有所了解，如果您還記得，去年年底，我們的積壓工作包括大約 28 週的硬體交付時間。我認為我們現在的硬體交貨時間已縮短至 8 至 10 週。當然，我們因此處理了一些積壓訂單。但我認為我們基本上在年中就陷入了低谷。我們預計下半年合約續約更加強勁，因為下半年到期的合約數量較多。在第三季度，您看到積壓訂單開始再次回升，我們預計它將在第四季度再次回升，因為我們的預訂季度強勁。我們預計季度預訂量將強勁。

The one I'd look for really is the annual -- the kind of cRPO is the one I track as I'm looking at the annual value. And I think when you compare the annual value at the end of this year, with the annual value backlog at the end of last year, the thing to remember is the fact that there'll be so much less hardware in it, I would expect, because we have the production capacity now to deliver on the hardware.

我真正要尋找的是年度——我在查看年度價值時追蹤的那種 cRPO。我認為，當你將今年年底的年度價值與去年年底的年度積壓價值進行比較時，要記住的是，我預計其中的硬體會少得多。 ，因為我們現在有能力交付硬體。

we'll go next now to Vivek Arya at Bank of America.

接下來我們將採訪美國銀行的 Vivek Arya。

I appreciate it's early for a '24 outlook, but I was hoping that you could give us some color given that your model is 85% recurring. So just conceptually, what is the likelihood Cadence can maintain this kind of mid-teens growth rate? And what would make '24 different or similar to '23 from a growth perspective?

我很高興現在對 24 年的前景進行預測還為時過早，但考慮到您的模型有 85% 是重複出現的，我希望您能為我們提供一些資訊。那麼，從概念上講，Cadence 能夠維持這種中青少年成長率的可能性有多大？從成長的角度來看，什麼會讓「24」與「23」不同或相似？

Yes. Vivek, like before, in Q3, we don't comment on the next year. We are diligent. We want to make sure we finish out the year, see what Q4 looks like and then we'll be glad to share our assessment in our next -- in the full year February earnings call. And that's what we have done in the past, and that has worked out well, right?

是的。 Vivek，和之前一樣，在第三季度，我們不對明年發表評論。我們很勤奮。我們希望確保今年結束，看看第四季度會是什麼樣子，然後我們很高興在下一次 2 月的全年收益電話會議上分享我們的評估。這就是我們過去所做的，而且效果很好，對吧？

Okay. On the IP side, I think, John, you mentioned that you're expecting a strong quarter for IP in Q4. I was wondering how much would your 2 recent acquisitions contribute to that. And just longer term, do you think IP as a category over or under grows the EDA? And does that influence your growth prospects? So both kind of near- and longer-term question on the IP business.

好的。在智慧財產權方面，約翰，我認為您提到您預計第四季度智慧財產權將表現強勁。我想知道您最近的兩次收購對此有何貢獻。從長遠來看，您認為 IP 作為一個類別的成長是否超過或低於 EDA？這會影響您的成長前景嗎？因此，這都是關於知識產權業務的近期和長期問題。

Okay. But let me take the first part of that, and then I'll hand it over to Anirudh for the second part. I think in relation to the IP business, like I say, we're expecting a strong Q4 for that group. I mean if you look at the guide we've given for the year, essentially, we're guiding to 14% to 15% revenue growth for the year, which means Q4-over-Q4 is going to grow kind of between 15% and 20%. Now largely, that's due to the strength of our IP business in Q4.

好的。但讓我先講第一部分，然後我將把第二部分交給阿尼魯德。我認為，就智慧財產權業務而言，正如我所說，我們預計該集團第四季將表現強勁。我的意思是，如果你看一下我們今年給出的指導，基本上，我們指導今年的收入增長 14% 到 15%，這意味著第四季度環比增長將在 15% 之間和20%。現在很大程度上，這要歸功於我們第四季知識產權業務的實力。

Do you want to talk about the longer term?

您想談談更長遠的事情嗎？

Yes. Vivek, I mean, as you know already, more customers are outsourcing their IP needs. And we have always participated in that, and we have always said, we want to participate in that in kind of STAR IP portfolio so that it's more and more profitable. And the profitability of our IP business has improved over the last few years. And so I think we are overall happy with the profitability of the IP business. So now we're trying to see, okay, what other areas can it grow and maintain profitability. And I think the areas that are emerging, which are strong, are this whole chiplet-based design and 3D IC and which are used for a lot of AI and hyperscaler applications. And that's also the reason we bought the PHY assets of Rambus, which is the HBM and GDDR-based IP.

是的。 Vivek，我的意思是，正如您所知，越來越多的客戶正在外包他們的 IP 需求。我們一直參與其中，我們一直說，我們希望以 STAR IP 投資組合的形式參與其中，以便它能獲得越來越多的利潤。我們的知識產權業務的盈利能力在過去幾年中有所提高。因此，我認為我們總體上對知識產權業務的盈利能力感到滿意。所以現在我們正在嘗試看看它還能在哪些其他領域實現成長並保持獲利能力。我認為新興的、強大的領域是基於小晶片的設計和 3D IC，它們用於許多人工智慧和超大規模應用。這也是我們購買 Rambus 的 PHY 資產的原因，即基於 HBM 和 GDDR 的 IP。

So I feel now that our IP portfolio is in the right areas and also the use of this automotive and hyperscaler and AI IP. And most of these markets are evolving into chiplet-based and 3D IC-based designs, which also have certain new IPs like UCIe and other things. So as a result of that, we are investing more in our IP business, as you saw, and then we expect a strong Q4, and then we'll see what happens in '24.

因此，我現在覺得我們的 IP 產品組合以及汽車、超大規模和人工智慧 IP 的使用都處於正確的領域。這些市場中的大多數正在演進為基於小晶片和基於 3D IC 的設計，其中也有某些新 IP，如 UCIe 等。因此，正如您所看到的，我們對 IP 業務進行了更多投資，然後我們預計第四季度將表現強勁，然後我們將看看 24 年會發生什麼。

Just to clarify, the contribution from acquisitions is likely to be immaterial for this year. So the strong Q4 that we're expecting is really from organic business.

需要澄清的是，今年收購的貢獻可能並不重要。因此，我們預期的強勁第四季度實際上來自有機業務。

We'll go next now to Ruben Roy at Stifel.

接下來我們將採訪 Stifel 的 Ruben Roy。

Anirudh, I wanted to ask if you could maybe talk a little bit more in detail about the collaboration with Renesas and kind of incorporate generative AI LLM to chip design. I think you mentioned some expectations for quality improvement, efficiency improvement. I would think that longer term, you'd be thinking about productivity improvement as well. Are those milestones that you're expecting to have answers about within the next year or 2 years? It sounds like this is sort of a longer-term collaboration and sort of testing going on today. Just wondering sort of what you're thinking about time frame in terms of incorporating some of these types of tools into chip design. And along with that, just the final part is, would you consider this a leading-edge design that Renesas is working on? Or if you could talk a little bit about the type of design, that would be great.

Anirudh，我想問您是否可以更詳細地談談與瑞薩電子的合作以及將生成式 AI LLM 融入晶片設計。我想你提到了一些對品質提升、效率提升的期望。我認為從長遠來看，你也會考慮提高生產力。您希望在未來一年或兩年內得到這些里程碑的答案嗎？聽起來這是一種長期合作和今天正在進行的測試。只是想知道您在將某些類型的工具納入晶片設計方面對時間框架的考慮。除此之外，最後一部分是，您認為這是瑞薩電子正在研究的前沿設計嗎？或者如果你能談談設計類型，那就太好了。

Yes, absolutely. So I mean, we are very pleased with the collaboration with Renesas. And I think they have a whole initiative if you follow them or if you look in AI for the design process, and we are glad to be a very close partner with Renesas as we are with other companies, right? So we just wanted to highlight Renesas this time. And the collaboration is broad-based. I think they're using almost all of our AI tools, whether it's Cerebrus for digital or verification, Verisium and other tools. And also, we are doing some new collaboration with them on LLM, like we mentioned. And the LLM collaboration is fairly broad-based. It can be applied to any kind of design, especially Renesas has a range of design all the way from advanced node to mainstream nodes.

是的，一點沒錯。所以我的意思是，我們對與瑞薩電子的合作感到非常高興。我認為，如果你跟隨他們，或者如果你在設計過程中尋找人工智慧，我們很高興能成為瑞薩電子的非常密切的合作夥伴，就像我們與其他公司一樣，對吧？所以我們這次只是想重點介紹瑞薩電子。而且合作基礎廣泛。我認為他們幾乎使用了我們所有的人工智慧工具，無論是用於數位或驗證的 Cerebrus、Verisium 和其他工具。此外，正如我們所提到的，我們正在與他們在法學碩士方面進行一些新的合作。法學碩士的合作基礎相當廣泛。它可以應用於任何類型的設計，特別是瑞薩擁有從先進節點到主流節點的一系列設計。

And you know this already, but the key thing, one benefit of AI is that there is -- of course, the quality of results can be better. Productivity can be better. But there are other benefits, which are also true for large kind of global companies like Renesas. And the 2 that I would like to highlight, which came to the forefront with our partnership with Renesas, one is all these large companies have geographically diverse teams, right? It's not that the team is only in one location. Typically, they are in multiple locations. So the good thing with AI is that -- and we can do, in a lot of cases, design better than a human can do. But also, it depends on the starting point, right?

你已經知道這一點，但關鍵的是，人工智慧的好處之一是——當然，結果的品質可以更好。生產力可以更好。但還有其他好處，對於像瑞薩這樣的大型跨國公司也是如此。我想強調的第二點，在我們與瑞薩電子的合作中脫穎而出，其一是所有這些大公司都擁有來自不同地理位置的團隊，對吧？這並不是說團隊只在一個地點。通常，它們位於多個位置。因此，人工智慧的好處在於，在許多情況下，我們可以比人類做得更好。但這也取決於出發點，對吧？

So if you have a geographically diverse team, not all teams are super experts. So if the AI tool is same or better than your best team, then the reason to deploy it is that wherever -- just by the nature of human productivity, there's a variation across the organization. The results can be even greater in your teams, which were historically not performing as well as you would like.

因此，如果您有一支來自不同地理位置的團隊，則並非所有團隊都是超級專家。因此，如果人工智慧工具與您最好的團隊相同或更好，那麼部署它的原因是，無論在哪裡——僅就人類生產力的本質而言，整個組織都存在差異。對於您的團隊來說，結果可能會更好，而這些團隊在歷史上的表現並不如您所希望的那樣。

And the other thing is also true in terms of experience. And this will happen, I believe, in AI in other industries as well, but it's definitely happening in chip design. So if you have 3 years experience doing chip design versus 20 years experience in chip design, okay, with AI, that gap is narrowing. So less experienced engineers can be almost as productive as more experienced engineers. So apart from like productivity and quality of results benefit, it has this other kind of almost workforce management benefit for a large organization like Renesas because they have organizations in multiple locations and also a wide experience range from young engineers to experienced engineers. And this we are seeing in other companies as well.

就經驗而言，另一件事也是如此。我相信，這也會發生在其他行業的人工智慧中，但它肯定會發生在晶片設計中。因此，如果你有 3 年晶片設計經驗，而你有 20 年晶片設計經驗，那麼，在人工智慧方面，這種差距正在縮小。因此，經驗不足的工程師幾乎可以與經驗豐富的工程師一樣有效率。因此，除了生產力和結果品質等優勢之外，對於瑞薩這樣的大型組織來說，它還具有另一種幾乎勞動力管理的優勢，因為他們在多個地點擁有組織，並且擁有從年輕工程師到經驗豐富的工程師的廣泛經驗。我們在其他公司也看到了這一點。

And I think what is also interesting is that the companies that adopt these AI tools first and faster will benefit more with their peers. So we are seeing that in the fast-moving companies, and Renesas is definitely one of them. And then we talked about, of course, Broadcom. We talked about NVIDIA. We talked about Tesla. And there's so many other kind of great, large multinational companies, we have the privilege of working with. So there are more than one. There is a whole workforce development benefit of AI, which are actually quite profound.

我認為同樣有趣的是，首先且更快地採用這些人工智慧工具的公司將與同行一起受益更多。所以我們看到，在快速發展的公司中，瑞薩絕對是其中之一。然後我們當然談到了博通。我們談論了英偉達。我們談論了特斯拉。還有許多其他類型的偉大的大型跨國公司，我們有幸與之合作。所以不只一個。人工智慧對整個勞動力發展有好處，這實際上是相當深遠的。

That's very helpful. I guess just a quick follow-up, I mean it sounds from what you're saying this should be incremental. I mean EDA has grown nicely. If you look at the core EDA growth over the last several years, you guys like to call out the 3-year CAGR. But from what's going on here, we should assume that this would be incremental on sort of the way you've seen EDA growth. Can you comment on that? As you think about whether it's software renewals or adding add-ons, as John talked about, over the next 12, 18, 24 months, would you say this would be incremental to sort of that mid-teens growth that the EDA tools have been growing at over the last 3 years or so?

這非常有幫助。我想只是一個快速的後續行動，我的意思是，從你所說的看來，這應該是漸進的。我的意思是 EDA 發展得很好。如果您查看過去幾年的核心 EDA 成長情況，您會喜歡提及 3 年複合年增長率。但從這裡發生的情況來看，我們應該假設這將以您所看到的 EDA 成長方式遞增。你能對此發表評論嗎？當您考慮軟體更新或添加附加元件時，正如 John 所說，在接下來的 12、18、24 個月內，您會說這將是 EDA 工具所經歷的十幾歲左右的增量增長嗎？過去3年左右的成長速度？

Well, I would comment on that. That's just -- I think our style of cadence is to be patient with our customers, and we'll go at the pace that they're ready. As Anirudh said earlier in the call, we expect to proliferate our AI tools across our entire customer base over about 2 contract cycles. And some are adopting more rapidly and embracing AI tools. Some are -- they're adopting the AI tools and add-ons, but they might be shaving back their configuration somewhere else. That tends to be a fourth economy because they'll just come back and purchase more add-ons later. So to get the full effect, it probably takes a couple of contract cycles, but we're very, very pleased with the start we've made.

好吧，我對此發表評論。我認為我們的節奏風格是對客戶保持耐心，我們將按照他們準備好的節奏進行。正如 Anirudh 早些時候在電話會議中所說，我們希望在大約 2 個合約週期內將我們的人工智慧工具擴展到整個客戶群。有些人正在更快地採用並擁抱人工智慧工具。有些是——他們正在採用人工智慧工具和附加元件，但他們可能會在其他地方削減配置。這往往是第四個經濟體，因為他們稍後會回來購買更多附加產品。因此，為了獲得全部效果，可能需要幾個合約週期，但我們對我們所做的開始非常非常滿意。

We'll go next now to Josh Tilton at Wolfe Research.

接下來我們請教沃爾夫研究中心的喬許‧蒂爾頓。

Can you hear me?

你聽得到我嗎？

Clear.

清除。

Great. My first question is just how does the 4Q hardware pipeline look compared to kind of some of the strength that you saw in the first 3 quarters of the year? And given that you mentioned that the macro is still challenging, is there any extra conservatism in the Q4 guide to account for the potential for maybe some hardware to slip into next year?

偉大的。我的第一個問題是，與您在今年前三個季度看到的一些實力相比，第四季度的硬體管道看起來如何？鑑於您提到宏觀仍然具有挑戰性，第四季度指南中是否有任何額外的保守主義來解釋明年某些硬體可能出現的可能性？

Yes, it's a great question. But pipeline is very strong. I mean the hardware demand just continues to amaze me. It's just tremendous. Those products -- that verification group is just performing at a really, really high level and in such a consistent fashion through probably 8 quarters now, so very pleased with that. You might have noticed that we kept the same range on the guide from last Q3 -- or from Q3 the same rate. Because we thought there's probably a broader kind of an array of potential outcomes with the amount of business that we expect to sign in Q4.

是的，這是一個很好的問題。但管道非常強大。我的意思是硬體需求繼續讓我感到驚訝。這真是太棒了。這些產品——驗證小組在大約 8 個季度中以非常非常高的水平和一致的方式表現，對此非常滿意。您可能已經注意到，我們在指南上保持了與上一季相同的範圍，或與第三季相同的利率。因為我們認為，我們預計第四季度簽署的業務量可能會產生更廣泛的一系列潛在結果。

We're expecting a strong bookings quarter in Q4, and there is a strong pipeline for hardware. But like I said, in relation to the AI question that we're very patient with our customers. We'll go at their pace. And naturally, if something slips from Q4 to Q1, it goes from this year to next year or vice versa, you can have stuff that customers are planning to buy in Q1 happen in Q4 as well. But I think we've accounted for that in the guide. Everything we know is in our guidance.

我們預計第四季度的預訂量將強勁，硬體的管道也很強大。但就像我說的，關於人工智慧問題，我們對客戶非常有耐心。我們會按照他們的節奏進行。當然，如果某些東西從第四季度滑到第一季度，從今年滑到明年，反之亦然，那麼客戶計劃在第一季購買的東西也可能會在第四季度發生。但我認為我們已經在指南中考慮到了這一點。我們所知道的一切都在我們的指導中。

Super helpful. And then just a follow-up, obviously, on AI, I can't not touch it. But as that business of yours triples, are you seeing the drive or the want to adopt these AI tools cause more of your users to make full flow decisions when maybe this has been more of a best-of-breed market historically?

超有幫助。顯然，接下來就是關於人工智慧的後續行動，我不能不碰它。但隨著您的業務成長三倍，您是否看到採用這些人工智慧工具的動力或願望會導致更多用戶做出全流程決策，而這可能是歷史上最好的市場？

Yes, absolutely. That's a very good point because the AI tools -- our AI tools will run on the full flow by nature, whether that's digital implementation or it is on -- and verification. And of course, we believe we have best-of-breed tools anyway on the base. It's like you have to have the full flow, the basic engines to be best-in-class and then add AI on top of them, which is best-in-class. But it is helping the underlying tools. So when our customers are doing more AI tools, it also -- as you know, we have commented in the past that the AI tools by nature used a lot of underlying tools.

是的，一點沒錯。這是一個非常好的觀點，因為人工智慧工具——我們的人工智慧工具本質上將在整個流程上運行，無論是數位實施還是正在運行——和驗證。當然，我們相信無論如何我們都擁有最好的工具。這就像你必須擁有完整的流程、基本引擎才能成為一流的，然後在它們之上添加人工智慧，這是一流的。但它正在幫助底層工具。因此，當我們的客戶使用更多的人工智慧工具時，正如您所知，我們過去曾評論過，人工智慧工具本質上使用了許多底層工具。

So when Cerebrus runs, for example, which is our AI tool for digital implementation, which is one of the most difficult tasks in chip design, so it will -- typically, the customers will use them on -- like one run of Cerebrus will typically run on 10, 20 machines, okay? And each of them could be like 32 CPUs or 16 CPUs. So they are using a lot of compute. And also, they're using a lot of underlying licenses. So it could be like 10 instances of Innovus, which Cerebrus is running.

例如，當 Cerebrus 運行時，這是我們用於數位實現的人工智慧工具，這是晶片設計中最困難的任務之一，因此，通常情況下，客戶會使用它們，就像運行一次 Cerebrus 一樣通常在10、20 台機器上運行，好嗎？每個 CPU 可能是 32 個 CPU 或 16 個 CPU。所以他們使用了大量的計算。而且，他們使用了大量的基礎許可證。因此，它可能類似於 Cerebrus 正在運行的 10 個 Innovus 實例。

And then it is also synthesis, place and route and signoff like in case of digital. And then logic simulation, formal verification, hardware in case of verification. And same thing with analog, it's not just Virtuoso, but it's Spectre. So it's definitely full flow is enabled but also typically requires more instances. Because we're doing AI-based design or AI-based intelligent search of the design process, so it will require multiple runs. Typically, instead of 1 or 2 runs, it may require 100 or 200 runs. But the user, we're doing that manually in a sequential manner and we can do that automatically in a more parallel manner, so it definitely helps. But it's still worth it because you get much better PPA and it's like using more compute and more software, more automation in place of more human effort. And we can do it faster and in a better PPA.

然後也是合成、佈局佈線以及簽核，就像數位技術一樣。然後進行邏輯仿真、形式驗證、硬體情況驗證。與模擬一樣，它不僅是 Virtuoso，而且是 Spectre。因此，肯定會啟用完整流程，但通常也需要更多實例。因為我們正在進行基於AI的設計或基於AI的智慧搜尋設計過程，所以它需要多次運行。通常，可能需要 100 或 200 次運行，而不是 1 或 2 次運行。但是對於用戶來說，我們以順序方式手動執行此操作，並且我們可以以更並行的方式自動執行此操作，因此這肯定有幫助。但這仍然是值得的，因為你可以獲得更好的 PPA，這​​就像使用更多的計算、更多的軟體、更多的自動化來取代更多的人力。我們可以在更好的 PPA 中更快地做到這一點。

We'll go next now to Joe Vruwink at Baird.

接下來我們將請貝爾德的喬·弗魯溫克 (Joe Vruwink) 發言。

Great. Sorry to belabor the backlog questions, but I suppose I'm going to. If we rewind 2 years ago and look at 3Q and the 4Q of 2021, current RPO then went up by, I think, nearly $400 million sequentially. Is that maybe how you would start to frame just renewal values that are coming due and what you could potentially look to build on?

偉大的。很抱歉要詳細闡述積壓的問題，但我想我會的。如果我們回顧 2 年前，看看 2021 年的第三季和第四季度，我認為目前的 RPO 會連續成長近 4 億美元。這也許是您開始建立即將到期的更新價值以及您可能希望建立的基礎的方式嗎？

And then second part of my backlog question, and it gets back to Jason's question on just the change in composition of hardware and software, just given what Cadence has been able to do on production capacity and ramping there, does that change the relationship in terms of what needs to be sitting in backlog at year-end in order to support some sort of next 12-month revenue expectation?

然後是我的待辦事項問題的第二部分，它回到了Jason 的問題，即硬體和軟體構成的變化，只要考慮到Cadence 在生產能力方面所做的工作以及在那裡的提升，這是否會改變這種關係年底需要積壓哪些訂單才能支持未來 12 個月的收入預期？

Joe, great questions there. But yes, I guess the way you profiled last year's growth, a large portion of that growth would have been, of course, the hardware we weren't able to service at the time. And the reason I called out the lead times was end of last year, that backlog and current year or the next 12 months backlog, if you like, contained about 26 to 28 weeks of lead time for hardware. That sounds about 8 to 10 weeks now.

喬，問題很好。但是，是的，我想按照您描述去年增長的方式，增長的很大一部分當然是我們當時無法提供服務的硬體。我之所以指出交貨時間是在去年年底，積壓訂單和今年或未來 12 個月的積壓訂單（如果您願意的話）包含大約 26 到 28 週的硬體交貨時間。現在聽起來大約要8到10週。

So I guess to answer the second part of your question there, when you get to the end of this year, because we've ramped up on the hardware production, you'll need less to be in backlog for the -- there'll be less need for revenue to come out of backlog for next year's revenue than there was for this year. And like I said, we've kept the production levels at the same level all year. So every quarter, we ratchet it up in Q1, and we've maintained that production level to try and reduce that those lead times because we think we're more competitive with customers.

所以我想回答你問題的第二部分，當你到今年年底時，因為我們已經提高了硬體生產，你將需要更少的積壓——與今年相比，明年收入積壓的收入需求較少。正如我所說，我們全年的生產水準都保持在同一水準。因此，每個季度，我們都會在第一季提高產量，並保持生產水平，以嘗試縮短交貨時間，因為我們認為我們對客戶更具競爭力。

I mean I was impressed this time last year, people were waiting over 6 months for our hardware solutions. But would be silly to assume that, that would continue. It's important to get the lead times down to 8 to 10 weeks. And I think that's kind of a more normal level to get to. But yes, very pleased with the progress we've made so far this year. And again, we're not really talking about next year, but we've got a very busy Q4 ahead of us.

我的意思是去年這個時候給我留下了深刻的印象，人們等待我們的硬體解決方案長達 6 個多月。但如果認為這種情況會持續下去，那就太愚蠢了。將交貨時間縮短至 8 至 10 週非常重要。我認為這是一個更正常的水平。但是，是的，我們對今年迄今為止所取得的進展感到非常滿意。再說一次，我們並不是真正在談論明年，但我們前面有一個非常繁忙的第四季。

Great. Thanks, John. If I can squeeze one more in, I think we're about to lap the OpenEye acquisition. I just wanted to see how that generally has tracked relative to your original expectations and maybe just get an update about how Cadence is thinking about the opportunity from the Molecular Sciences Group and the role you can play in life sciences looking forward.

偉大的。謝謝，約翰。如果我能再擠進一個，我想我們即將完成對 OpenEye 的收購。我只是想了解相對於您最初的期望，總體情況如何，也許只是了解 Cadence 如何考慮分子科學小組的機會以及您未來在生命科學中可以發揮的作用。

Absolutely. We are super excited about that. We are super excited about molecular design and the future. It's almost like where EDA was maybe 20 years ago. And before I talk specifically about molecular design, I want to tell you in terms of our product strategy and how that is synergistic and similar to it.

絕對地。我們對此感到非常興奮。我們對分子設計和未來感到非常興奮。這幾乎就像 20 年前 EDA 的情況一樣。在我具體談論分子設計之前，我想告訴您我們的產品策略以及它如何協同和相似。

So I see a lot of activity in our main products, which I would describe as like 3 layers -- in 3 layers. So the middle layer is actual software products that we have, which are either you're doing like EDA design or they doing system simulation or are they doing finite element, computational flow dynamics or molecular simulation. So that's the middle layer of the cake. And below that, is this new emergence of computational hardware, which is special purpose hardware. Like we had in the past, we had special purpose of hardware with Palladium, which is our custom chip. But now we use FPGAs for Protium. We have, of course, x86-based Intel and AMD CPUs. And then recently, a lot of activity on GPUs, especially with NVIDIA GPUs and accelerated computing. So that's the bottom layer of the cake. And then the top layer of that 3-layer cake is AI orchestration. AI can provide this new level of automation and productivity and doing what was typically done by humans can be done with AI, like we talked about Cerebrus or Verisium.

因此，我在我們的主要產品中看到了很多活動，我將其描述為 3 層——分為 3 層。所以中間層是我們擁有的實際軟體產品，它們要嘛是你在做 EDA 設計，要嘛是他們在做系統仿真，要嘛是他們在做有限元素、計算流動力學或分子模擬。這就是蛋糕的中間層。在其之下，是新出現的計算硬件，即專用硬體。就像我們過去一樣，我們有特殊用途的硬件，包括 Palladium，這是我們的客製化晶片。但現在我們使用 Protium 的 FPGA。當然，我們有基於 x86 的 Intel 和 AMD CPU。最近，關於 GPU 的活動很多，尤其是 NVIDIA GPU 和加速運算。這就是蛋糕的底層。然後這個三層蛋糕的頂層就是人工智慧編排。人工智慧可以提供這種新層次的自動化和生產力，並且可以使用人工智慧來完成通常由人類完成的工作，就像我們談論的 Cerebrus 或 Verisium 一樣。

So this 3-layer cake is central to our product strategy. So the middle is simulation, which is physics-based, biology-based. The top is AI orchestration. The bottom is computational hardware. And then this can be verticalized across multiple verticals, whether it's EDA and chip design, whether it's package design with Allegro X AI, whether it is clarity and optimality, whether it's CFD with Fidelity and, more importantly, like you asked with biosimulation. So the reason we acquired OpenEye is that gives that critical middle layer of physics-based biological simulation, which there are very few companies that can do that. But then we can add to it AI-based drug discovery and computational hardware with GPUs.

因此，這個三層蛋糕是我們產品策略的核心。所以中間是模擬，它是基於物理、基於生物學的。最上面是AI編排。最底層是計算硬體。然後，這可以跨多個垂直領域進行垂直化，無論是EDA 和晶片設計，無論是Allegro X AI 的封裝設計，無論是清晰度和優化性，無論是Fidelity 的CFD，更重要的是，就像您在生物模擬中所要求的那樣。因此，我們收購 OpenEye 的原因是它提供了基於物理的生物模擬的關鍵中間層，很少有公司可以做到這一點。但隨後我們可以添加基於人工智慧的藥物發現和具有 GPU 的運算硬體。

So as you may know, the OpenEye has an Orion cloud-based platform, it already runs on GPUs, giving significant speed up for biosimulation. And then recently -- and we'll talk more about it in the future, we expanded our collaboration with one major top 5 pharmaceutical company to do traditional and AI-based drug discovery on top of OpenEye and Orion platform. And so I think this thing is the future.

如您所知，OpenEye 有一個基於 Orion 雲端的平台，它已經在 GPU 上運行，從而顯著加快了生物模擬的速度。最近，我們將在未來詳細討論這一點，我們擴大了與一家排名前 5 的主要製藥公司的合作，在 OpenEye 和 Orion 平台上進行傳統和基於人工智慧的藥物發現。所以我認為這就是未來。

If you go forward, as mentioned in the last time also, the application of AI also, I think, is going to go into 3 steps. So first, application of AI is going to be in building out the infrastructure, like we talked about, of course, great companies like NVIDIA and Tesla and now Broadcom. So the build-out of infrastructure and there's so many other hyperscaler companies, as you know, they are all building out AI infrastructure. So that's the first phase of AI adoption. The second phase of AI adoption is applying AI to our own products like Cerebrus and JedAI and Verisium. We talked about that today also. And that's going pretty well. And we talked about the progress in the last 1 year. And that, I think, will still take several years to go. And then the third phase of AI adoption is AI applied to areas that were not automated in the past, okay? So I think that may take longer, maybe 5 years plus, but that has to be driven to digital biology and life sciences. I mean there's a huge application of AI. And to do that properly, we need that 3-layer cake, we need AI on top, we need biosimulation which OpenEye brings and then computational hardware with our leading compute platform. So I'm very optimistic about the future.

如果繼續前進，正如上次提到的那樣，我認為人工智慧的應用也將分為三個步驟。首先，人工智慧的應用將用於建立基礎設施，就像我們談到的那樣，當然還有像 NVIDIA 和 Tesla 這樣的偉大公司，以及現在的 Broadcom。因此，基礎設施的建設以及許多其他超大規模公司，如您所知，他們都在建造人工智慧基礎設施。這就是人工智慧採用的第一階段。人工智慧採用的第二階段是將人工智慧應用到我們自己的產品中，例如 Cerebrus、JedAI 和 Verisium。我們今天也談到了這一點。一切進展順利。我們談到了過去一年的進展。我認為這還需要幾年的時間。然後人工智慧採用的第三階段是將人工智慧應用於過去沒有自動化的領域，好嗎？所以我認為這可能需要更長的時間，也許 5 年以上，但這必須推動數位生物學和生命科學的發展。我的意思是人工智慧有龐大的應用。為了正確地做到這一點，我們需要三層蛋糕，我們需要在上面的人工智慧，我們需要 OpenEye 帶來的生物模擬，然後需要我們領先的計算平台的計算硬體。所以我對未來非常樂觀。

Now it will take some time. This does not happen in a quarter or 2 quarters. But it's right to invest for the future, and it is synergistic with the other parts of -- a lot of the biosimulation is similar to what we do in circuit simulation or CFD and things like that. But overall, I would like to say still in the early innings with biology and biosimulation and OpenEye, but it's a good start, and we are investing it for the future in a controlled way, of course. We are always financially disciplined. But I think the potential is there in the future for it to emerge as one of the big areas. Yes.

現在還需要一些時間。這不會在一個季度或兩個季度內發生。但為未來投資是正確的，而且它與其他部分具有協同作用——許多生物模擬與我們在電路模擬或 CFD 等領域所做的類似。但總的來說，我想說生物學、生物模擬和 OpenEye 仍處於早期階段，但這是一個好的開始，當然，我們正在以受控的方式為未來進行投資。我們始終遵守財務紀律。但我認為未來它有可能成為重要領域之一。是的。

And our final question comes from Andrew DeGasperi at Berenberg.

我們的最後一個問題來自貝倫貝格的安德魯·德加斯佩里。

Just have two quick ones. I know most of them were answered so far on this call. But first on the margin, maybe could you lay out, John, in terms of the guidance for the year, I know you took down slightly the top end of the range for the operating margin on a non-GAAP basis. Just wondering maybe if you could lay out what the puts and takes are there, is it revenue mix? Is it the recent acquisitions that you made that might have sort of crystallized that number? And without having to answer the second time, but like in terms of investments that you're making for next year, is the pace of, call it, hiring going to change at all based on what you're seeing right now?

只要有兩個快點就可以了。我知道到目前為止，大多數人都在這次電話會議上得到了答案。但首先在利潤方面，約翰，也許你可以在今年的指導方面列出，我知道你稍微降低了非公認會計原則營業利潤率範圍的上限。只是想知道您是否可以列出其中的看跌期權和持倉內容，這是收入組合嗎？您最近進行的收購是否可能使這個數​​字具體化？無需第二次回答，但就像您明年的投資一樣，招募的步伐是否會根據您現在所看到的情況而改變？

Great questions, Andrew. Yes, in relation to the margin, the recent acquisitions are more dilutive to this year, so we're picking up more expense. We picking very, very little revenue. We're picking up expense immediately. And that kind of narrowed the range on the margin outcomes for us -- or at the midpoint of 41.75%, I think it works out to be about $5.10 on non-GAAP EPS. In relation -- what was the second part of the question? Sorry, I've forgotten the second part of the question.

很好的問題，安德魯。是的，就利潤率而言，最近的收購比今年的稀釋程度更大，因此我們承擔了更多費用。我們的收入非常非常少。我們立即收取費用。這縮小了我們的利潤率範圍——或者說在 41.75% 的中點，我認為非 GAAP 每股收益約為 5.10 美元。相對而言－問題的第二部分是什麼？抱歉，我忘了問題的第二部分。

Yes, no worries. Just in terms of hiring, just in terms of how you're thinking about it so far.

是的，不用擔心。就招募而言，就目前為止你的想法而言。

Yes. I mean it's great. We continue to attract top talent to Cadence. You may notice, though, in our 10-Q, we did some restructuring. In August, we initiated a restructuring plan to better align our resources with our business strategy, and we incurred about $12 million of costs comprised of severance payments and termination benefits in relation to head count reductions. But I would kind of categorize that as a bit of housekeeping in preparation for next year.

是的。我的意思是這太棒了。我們持續吸引頂尖人才加入 Cadence。不過，您可能會注意到，在 10-Q 中，我們進行了一些重組。 8 月份，我們啟動了一項重組計劃，以更好地調整我們的資源與業務策略的關係，我們產生了約 1,200 萬美元的成本，包括與裁員相關的遣散費和解僱福利。但我認為這是為明年做準備的一些家事。

I will now turn it back over to Anirudh Devgan for closing remarks.

現在我將把它轉回 Anirudh Devgan 作結束語。

Thank you all for joining us this afternoon. Our strong execution of the intelligent system design strategy and customer-first mindset continue to drive growth as we expand our portfolio with new innovative AI-driven solutions. We are proud of our inclusive culture and focus on enabling sustainable innovation and honored to recently be named to Newsweek's America's Greenest Companies 2024 list.

感謝大家今天下午加入我們。隨著我們透過新的創新人工智慧驅動解決方案擴展我們的產品組合，我們對智慧系統設計策略和客戶至上的心態的強大執行將繼續推動成長。我們為我們的包容性文化感到自豪，並專注於實現永續創新，並很榮幸最近被《新聞週刊》評為 2024 年美國最環保公司名單。

On behalf of our Board of Directors, we thank our customers, partners and investors for their continued trust and confidence in Cadence. Thank you.

我們謹代表董事會感謝客戶、合作夥伴和投資者對 Cadence 的持續信任和信心。謝謝。

Thank you for participating in today's Cadence Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. This does conclude today's call. You may now disconnect. Thank you for participating today.

感謝您參加今天的 Cadence 2023 年第三季財報電話會議。今天的電話會議到此結束。您現在可以斷開連線。感謝您今天的參與。