Cadence Design Systems 10-K 2024-12-31
Filed 2025-02-21. 24 sections, 509K characters. Original on sec.gov · Markdown · JSON
Cover and table of contents
UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
FORM 10-K
(Mark One)
| ☒ | ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 |
For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024
OR
| ☐ | TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 |
For the transition period from _________ to_________.
Commission file number 000-15867

CADENCE DESIGN SYSTEMS, INC.
(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)
| Delaware | 00-0000000 | |||||||||||||
| (State or Other Jurisdiction of Incorporation or Organization) | (I.R.S. Employer Identification No.) | |||||||||||||
| 2655 Seely Avenue, Building 5, | San Jose, | California | 95134 | |||||||||||
| (Address of Principal Executive Offices) | (Zip Code) |
(408) 943-1234
(Registrant’s Telephone Number, including Area Code)
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:
| Title of Each Class | Trading Symbol(s) | Name of Each Exchange on which Registered | ||||||
| Common Stock, $0.01 par value per share | CDNS | Nasdaq Global Select Market |
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:
None
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes ☒ No ☐
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes ☐ No ☒
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes ☒ No ☐
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§ 232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). Yes ☒ No ☐
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.
| Large Accelerated Filer | ☒ | Accelerated Filer | ☐ | |||||||||||||||||
| Non-accelerated Filer | ☐ | Smaller Reporting Company | ☐ | |||||||||||||||||
| Emerging Growth Company | ☐ |
If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. ☒
If securities are registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act, indicate by check mark whether the financial statements of the registrant included in the filing reflect the correction of an error to previously issued financial statements. ☐
Indicate by check mark whether any of those error corrections are restatements that required a recovery analysis of incentive-based compensation received by any of the registrant’s executive officers during the relevant recovery period pursuant to §240.10D-1(b). ☐
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act). Yes ☐ No ☒
The aggregate market value of the voting and non-voting common equity held by non-affiliates computed by reference to the price at which the common equity was last sold as of the last business day of the registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter ended June 30, 2024 was approximately $84,268,000,000.
On January 31, 2025, approximately 274,108,000 shares of the registrant’s common stock, $0.01 par value, were outstanding.
DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE
Portions of the definitive proxy statement for Cadence Design Systems, Inc.’s 2025 Annual Meeting of Stockholders are incorporated by reference into Parts II and III hereof. Such definitive proxy statement will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission within 120 days of the registrant's fiscal year ended December 31, 2024.
CADENCE DESIGN SYSTEMS, INC.
ANNUAL REPORT ON FORM 10-K
FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2024
Table of Contents
PART I.
Item 1. Business
This Annual Report and the documents incorporated by reference in this Annual Report contain statements that are not historical in nature, are predictive, or that depend upon or refer to future events or conditions or contain other forward-looking statements. Statements including, but not limited to, statements regarding the horizons of artificial intelligence (“AI"), other technological and market advancements and their impacts on our business; the extent, timing and mix of future revenues and customer demand; the deployment of our products and services; the impact of the macroeconomic and geopolitical environment, including but not limited to, expanded trade controls, tariffs, conflicts around the world, volatility in foreign currency exchange rates, inflation and changes in interest rates; the impact of government actions; future costs, expenses, tax rates and uses of cash; pending legal, administrative and tax proceedings; restructuring actions and associated charges and benefits; pending acquisitions, accounting for acquisitions and integration of acquired businesses; and other statements using words such as “anticipates,” “believes,” “could,” “estimates,” “expects,” “forecasts,” “intends,” “may,” “plans,” “projects,” “should,” “targets,” “will” and “would,” and words of similar import and the negatives thereof, constitute forward-looking statements. These statements are predictions based upon our current expectations about future events. Actual results could vary materially as a result of certain factors, including but not limited to those expressed in these statements. Important risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, those identified in the “Proprietary Technology,” “Governmental Regulations,” “Competition,” “Risk Factors,” “Critical Accounting Estimates,” “Results of Operations,” “Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk” and “Liquidity and Capital Resources” sections contained in this Annual Report and the risks discussed in our other Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) filings.
We urge you to consider these factors carefully in evaluating the forward-looking statements contained in this Annual Report. All subsequent written or oral forward-looking statements attributable to our company or persons acting on our behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by these cautionary statements. The forward-looking statements included in this Annual Report are made only as of the date of this Annual Report. We do not intend, and undertake no obligation, to update these forward-looking statements.
Overview
Cadence® is a global market leader that develops computational, AI-driven software, accelerated hardware, and intellectual property (“IP”) solutions for engineers and scientists to bring new and innovative products to life. The world’s most innovative technology companies use our solutions and services to deliver transformational products to multiple industries that drive the global economy. The products these companies develop are some of the most complex systems in the world. Since our inception, we have been at the forefront of technology innovation. We work closely with our customers, helping them solve their most complex challenges in the semiconductor and electronic systems industries to unlock limitless opportunities.
Our customers include semiconductor companies that design and manufacture semiconductor devices and systems companies that design and manufacture products containing many different types of semiconductors, which they either make themselves or buy from a semiconductor company. Semiconductors, also referred to as integrated circuits (“ICs”), or chips, are the heart of almost every industry. Semiconductors are the catalyst for innovation in many industries including automotive, aerospace, biotech, hyperscale and cloud computing, data centers, telecommunications, medical technology, industrial internet of things (“IIoT”), and AI. They are found in a wide variety of consumer products such as cell phones, automobiles, computers, home appliances, home security, drones, and home entertainment systems.
Business Strategy
Our Intelligent System Design™ (“ISD”) strategy allows us to deliver solutions to our customers to solve their most complex product development challenges. Our industry-leading computational software, accelerated hardware, and IP enable us to adapt to our customer's dynamic design requirements, allowing them to meet their critical business and environmental concerns including time-to-market and sustainability. The creation of even the most seemingly simple electronic systems and products typically includes a complex design process and requires highly trained engineers with various areas of specialized knowledge and skill sets. Our ability to deliver innovative products that keep up with increasing complexity allows our customers to be successful in meeting their business goals and objectives.
Historically, the industry that provided the software tools IC engineers used was called Electronic Design Automation (“EDA”). The pace of technical innovation in EDA has been driven by a concept known as Moore’s Law, which more than 50 years ago predicted that the complexity of ICs would double approximately every 18-24 months. Our strategy, illustrated in the graphic below, is focused on three primary areas: Design Excellence, System Innovation, and Pervasive Intelligence.
Design Excellence focuses on our core technology and deep understanding of computational software, accelerated computing, machine learning, and AI to develop best-in-class electronic design and analysis semiconductor solutions. In this area, customers are primarily developing large chips including those used in computers, laptops, cellphones, medical devices, games and entertainment systems, and many other types of consumer electronics. Design Excellence applies to all types of semiconductor electronics including CPUs, GPUs, MCUs, memory, radio frequency (“RF”), analog, and mixed-signal, in both mainstream and advanced semiconductor process nodes.
System Innovation builds on our foundation of Design Excellence and deep expertise in computational algorithms and expands that expertise to include multiphysics-based analysis of systems that contain electronic devices, including printed circuit boards (“PCBs”), devices with advanced packaging technology, and 3-dimensional IC (“3D-IC”). This gives customers designing full systems containing multiple electronic devices, the ability to verify that their products will work as intended under various physical conditions. Some examples of electronic systems are a computer motherboard, the electronics in a cellphone, or the electronic transmission or infotainment system in an automobile.
Pervasive Intelligence incorporates AI training and inference algorithms in our solutions to help customers optimize performance and productivity with improved quality of results for their products. The amount of data produced in the design phase of their products has grown exponentially over the last 20 years. We implement generative AI agents to analyze large data sets and break through the limitations of the conventional human-intensive optimization process to achieve optimal design solutions expeditiously and without compromising accuracy.

Our software and hardware products also support cloud access to address our customers' growing computational needs. Customers can access our solutions via our Cadence OnCloud Platform.
Business Drivers
Our products and services enable our customers to design complex and innovative semiconductor and electronic systems that are driven by key trends, including foundries creating new advanced transistor devices and processes, semiconductor companies designing electrical systems, systems companies designing semiconductors, the hyper-convergence between electrical and mechanical systems, hyperscale computing, autonomous driving, and 5G. These trends are accelerated by the AI super cycle. Demand for our technology and expertise is driven by increasing complexity and our customers’ need to invest in new designs and products that are highly differentiated.
Generative AI is reshaping the entire semiconductor and systems industry development process. From our perspective, the AI super cycle we are experiencing will influence our key business opportunities along three horizons, which are Infrastructure AI, Physical AI and Life Sciences AI. The first horizon, Infrastructure AI, is being driven by data centers and hyperscale computing to provide the necessary power to run AI workloads. The second horizon, Physical AI, is the integration of AI with autonomous systems. It will drive many applications such as automobiles, industrial robots, and many other autonomous systems. The third horizon, Life Sciences AI, is the application of AI and computer science to biology to drive advancements in the medical and life sciences industries.
Underlying the requirements within any particular vertical sector is the availability of rapidly improving IC manufacturing technology. In order for our customers to take advantage of such advancements, some of our products need to first incorporate new capabilities such that they can exploit new manufacturing capabilities. This dependency means that we must invest significantly in product research and development (“R&D”) to keep pace with the latest manufacturing technology. The demand for new IC manufacturing technology directly impacts the demand for our newest products.
Another driver for our business is the differentiation, capabilities and benefits provided to our customers by our products. With the rapid pace of innovation comes the opportunity for our products to address growing key challenges associated with the design of electronic products, such as power consumption, performance, chip area and cost. Our products and services have differentiated attributes that our customers value. In general, these attributes can be grouped into broader categories such as quality of results (in terms of power consumption, performance and chip area), engineering productivity, tool performance, manufacturability, reliability and faster time to market. Many of these attributes contribute to sustainability initiatives by enabling our customers to create innovative products that optimize power, space and energy.
Product Categories
Engineers use our solutions to complete critical steps in the design process, which includes creating, implementing, and verifying the design for functionality, manufacturability and other required industry-related compliance standards. Much of an engineer's time spent with our solutions during the design process involves running simulations to verify that their design will work as expected. Our technology, enhanced by AI, allows our customers to build a virtual model or digital twin that accurately predicts how their design will work. The ability to perform these simulations leads to significant time and cost savings for our customers as they can find and fix critical design problems before building their products. Our customers rely on our solutions to ensure their products perform safely and reliably.
In alignment with our Intelligent System Design strategy, we define our solutions in three product categories: Core EDA, Semiconductor IP, and System Design and Analysis (“SD&A”). Core EDA includes our software, hardware, and services used to design and verify a wide variety of semiconductors. Our Semiconductor IP portfolio includes silicon subsystems, software, and services that are used in semiconductor design. The SD&A category includes our software and services used to design and verify a wide variety of physical electronic systems. Leveraging our AI and computational software expertise, we have integrated the multiphysics domain (also known as “computational fluid dynamics,” or “CFD”) with our EDA solutions to provide customers with complete system-level design and analysis solutions. These categories are tightly integrated to provide complete design solutions for our customers.
Core EDA
Our Core EDA product category addresses the design and verification for a wide variety of semiconductor chips and manufacturing process technologies. Examples of the types of chips include analog, custom, digital, mixed-signal, memory, microwave, silicon photonics, and RF. The types of devices addressed by Core EDA covers a wide range of industries including automotive, aero and defense, hyperscale computing and data center, mobile communication, medical devices, and consumer electronics. As the complexity of chip design, semiconductor process technology, and electronic system design has increased, we have been incorporating the latest advances in machine learning and generative AI to drive significant improvements for our customers’ design quality of results and engineering productivity.
Custom IC Design and Simulation
Virtuoso Studio is the foundation of our solution platform for custom, analog, mixed-signal, photonics, and RF semiconductors. It is a complete AI-enabled solution that integrates the key Cadence technology required for silicon design, layout, and verification. Engineers use this solution to define the chip functionality (schematic) and physical layout descriptions for the complete design of chips, advanced packaged devices, and PCBs. Designs are functionally verified in simulation with the Spectre simulation solution. We believe Spectre is the gold standard for circuit design including analog, custom, memory, silicon photonics, and RF. Pegasus Physical Verification, our physical verification solution, is fully integrated with Virtuoso.
Digital IC Design and Signoff
The Innovus Implementation System is the foundation of our full-flow digital IC design and signoff solution. A typical digital full-flow solution has four primary areas, which include creating the functional description (design synthesis), performing functional verification, running the physical implementation (place and route), and performing sign-off checks for manufacturing. The Innovus Implementation System is integrated with the key full-flow solution areas. For functional design, customers use the Genus Synthesis solution. For sign-off checks, customers use the Quantus Extraction, Timing Signoff, Voltus C Power Integrity, and Pegasus Physical Verification solutions. While these are the main areas in the digital flow, there are other important technology solutions for a comprehensive flow that includes the need for test synthesis, logic equivalence checking, high level power analysis, and optimization. The solutions are Joules™ RTL Power, which is designed to deliver fast power analysis while preserving near-signoff accuracy, and Cadence Modus DFT software, which reduces system-on-chip (“SoC”) design-for-test time. Cadence Cerebrus™ is our generative AI solution that combines all elements of the full-flow IC through signoff, enabling additional productivity, automation, and improved quality of results throughout the entire design flow.
Functional Verification
As mentioned above, functional verification is an important aspect of the design process. Design engineers rely heavily on the capability to verify that the chip's functional description is equivalent to the physical description used to manufacture the silicon. Functional verification is done multiple times throughout the design process as changes are incorporated, with the objective of identifying as many potential functional issues as possible before manufacturing the circuitry, thereby significantly reducing the risk of discovering a costly error in the completed product. We offer two functional verification software solutions, the Jasper Formal Verification Platform, and the Xcelium™ Parallel Logic Simulation Platform. These software solutions help engineers compare the functional view of the design with its physical view to make sure they match and help ensure that the design will successfully pass all functional tests.
Our hardware acceleration and software prototyping solutions address another important aspect of functional verification in design flows. This capability is essential for chips that are used in high-performance computers like microprocessors, graphics processors, and AI processor chips. Some of the functional tests for these designs are so large that they may take weeks or even months to complete. Hardware acceleration, also known as emulation, and software prototyping can reduce these large simulations to hours or a few days. Our Palladium® Enterprise Emulation Platform and Protium™ field programmable gate arrays (“FPGA”)-Based Prototyping Platforms are for more comprehensive chip verification, often running low-level embedded software on top of a model of the chip, to ensure proper functionality before silicon manufacturing. These engines are used for early bug detection, verification of block-level functionality, verification acceleration and emulation of system-level functionality, system-level power exploration, analysis and optimization, and system-level prototyping for hardware/software co-verification. Our Palladium platform provides high throughput, capacity, data center reliability, and workgroup productivity to enable global design teams to develop advanced hardware-software systems. The Protium platform leverages a common front end with the Palladium environment to move designs rapidly from emulation to the prototyping stage, enabling software development to begin weeks to months earlier than otherwise possible. Verisium™ is our generative AI solution for multi-run verification that enables additional productivity, automation, and quality of results throughout the entire verification flow.
Semiconductor IP
Our semiconductor IP product category includes strategic and mission-critical design architectures that our customers use to integrate into their highly differentiated design blocks, SoC subsystems, and chiplets. These are typically designed into silicon chips that are found in high volume in multiple markets such as automotive, hyperscale, mobile computing, and many consumer products including mobile phones, and AI chips. Our IP offerings include controllers and physical interfaces, which are commonly used in computing, networking, and embedded systems. We have a broad portfolio of PCI Express, Universal Accelerator Link, Compute Express Link, multiple memory interfaces including High Bandwidth Memory and Graphics Double Data Rate, and many other standards. In addition, our portfolio includes a wide variety of digital signal processor IPs. Our Tensilica® configurable digital signal processors are vertically targeted subsystems for AI, audio/voice, baseband and vision/imaging applications, controllers and physical interfaces for standard protocols and analog IP. Our design IP portfolio includes solutions for high speed serializer/deserializer (“SerDes”), peripheral component interconnect (“PCI”), USB, and many other standards. In addition to the IP portfolio listed above, customers rely on our Verification IP (“VIP”) portfolio to perform system-level validation. The VIP models are designed to work seamlessly with our Xcelium™ simulator and Palladium® Enterprise Emulation solutions.
We also offer design services to provide customers with end-to-end solutions from design specifications to final working silicon. In the first quarter of fiscal 2024, we acquired Invecas, a leading provider of design engineering, embedded software, and system-level solutions. With this acquisition, we have added a highly skilled system design engineering team with expertise in providing IP design services for a wide variety of advanced node and mixed-signal chip designs, verification, product engineering, advanced packaging, and embedded software.
System Design and Analysis
Our SD&A product category is a comprehensive multiphysics platform that helps our customers design and simulate electronics and entire systems. It encompasses key areas of analysis including electromagnetic, thermal, structure, computational fluid dynamics, molecular, PCB and packaging, mechanical and structural analysis.
The capabilities in the Allegro® System Design Platform include PCB design and implementation, IC package and system-in-package design, signal and power integrity analysis, and PCB library design management and collaboration. The need for compact, high-performance mobile, consumer, and automotive design with advanced serial interconnect is driving the technological evolution of our PCB offerings. For mainstream PCB customers, where individual or small team productivity is a focus, we provide the OrCAD® family of offerings, which are primarily marketed worldwide through a network of resellers. Allegro X AI™ is our generative AI solution designed to provide significant cycle-time compression for PCB design, enhancing an engineer’s productivity.
The speed and proximity of signals on silicon, through packages to boards, and through connectors and cables, exposes these communications to various kinds of interference, generates heat, and emits electromagnetic radiation. Careful analysis is required for these systems to work as designed under a wide range of operating conditions, standards, and regulatory laws. The complexity of these devices and signal transmissions requires analysis and simulation throughout the product lifecycle to meet these objectives. Our Clarity™ 3D Solver for electromagnetic and power electronics analysis and simulation, as well as our Celsius™ Thermal Solver, provide the foundation for multiphysics analysis technology, with complete electrical-thermal co-simulation for electronic systems from ICs to physical enclosures.
Our Fidelity™ CFD Software expands our ability to meet the growing design challenges of electronic and systems companies. Fidelity CFD is a physics-based analysis solution for mechanical design and complements the electronic system analysis portfolio. Our comprehensive suite of computational fluid dynamics (“CFD”) solutions enables our customers to extend their multiphysics analysis workflows to address simulation and analysis challenges for applications such as aerodynamics, hydrodynamics, propulsion, turbomachinery, heat transfer, and combustion. Optimality™ Intelligent System Explorer is the industry’s first generative AI-driven multiphysics optimization solution. It delivers additional productivity, automation, and improved system-level power, performance and area and quality of results throughout the entire analysis flow.
Our Cadence Reality Digital Twin platform brings physics-based design and analysis to the data center sector for performance-aware design and operational planning. Data center professionals can future-proof designs and assess operational decisions with this digital twin and empower designers, owners, and operators to address the need for reliability, capacity, and energy efficiency.
With our acquisition of BETA CAE Systems International AG (“BETA CAE”) in fiscal 2024, we expanded our multiphysics simulation capabilities to include mechanical and structural analysis. BETA CAE’s industry-leading solutions include ANSA for pre-processing and full-flow model development, META for post-processing and analysis, EPILYSIS for structural analysis, and FATIQ for fatigue and failure analysis. These solutions along with the rest of BETA CAE’s portfolio address mechanical and structural design challenges in several markets including aerospace, automotive, biomechanics, construction, energy, crash and safety, industrial equipment, marine, and robotics.
Our Millennium™ Multiphysics Enterprise Platform is an industry-first turnkey AI-enabled digital twin. Millennium M1 is the first release and is designed to overcome traditional CFD speed/accuracy and compute resource limitations with a combination of GPU resident CFD solvers such as Fidelity LES for large eddy simulations (“LES”) and scalable high-performance hardware.
For 3D-IC and multi-chiplet designs, our customers use the Cadence® Integrity™ 3D-IC Platform. Built on the Innovus solution, Integrity allows system-level designers to plan, implement, and analyze stacked die systems for a variety of packaging styles (2.5D or 3D). Integrity 3D-IC is the industry’s first integrated system and SoC-level solution that enables system analysis, including co-design, with Virtuoso and Allegro implementation environments.
We also offer molecular modeling and simulation solutions and services. These solutions and services are used by a wide range of organizations in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors to accelerate the drug discovery process and make more informed decisions in developing new therapeutics.
Product Arrangements
We primarily license our software using time-based licenses. Our time-based license arrangements offer customers the right to access and use all of the products delivered at the outset of an arrangement and updates throughout the entire term of the arrangement, which is generally two to three years, with no rights to return. In addition, certain time-based license arrangements include the right for the customer to remix among the products delivered at the outset of the arrangement and use unspecified additional products that become commercially available during the term of the arrangement.
A small portion of our software is licensed under perpetual licenses, which does not include the right to use new technology. Payment terms for time-based licenses generally provide for payments to be made over the license period, and payment terms for perpetual licenses generally are net 30 days.
Our hardware products are either sold or leased to our customers. Our emulation hardware can also be accessed remotely via a Cadence-managed cloud arrangement.
We generally license our design IP under nonexclusive license agreements that provide usage rights for specific designs. Some customers enter into non-cancelable commitments, whereby the customer commits to a fixed dollar amount over a specified period of time that can be used to purchase from a list of products or services. In addition, for certain IP license agreements, we collect royalties as our customers ship their product that includes our IP to their customers.
For a further description of our license agreements, our hardware sale or lease agreements, revenue recognition policies and results of operations, please refer to the discussion under “Critical Accounting Estimates” under Part II, Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.”
Technical Support and Maintenance
Customer service and support is critical to the adoption and successful use of our products. We provide our customers with technical support and maintenance to facilitate their use of our software, hardware and IP solutions.
Our education services offerings can be customized and include training programs that are delivered online, through an app, or in a classroom setting. The content of these offerings ranges from the latest design techniques to methodologies for using the most recent features of our products. The primary focus of education services is to accelerate our customers’ path to productivity in the use of our products.
Services
We offer a number of services, including design services, services related to methodology, education and hosted design solutions. These services may be sold separately or sold and performed in conjunction with the license, sale or lease of our products. As necessary, specialized design services engineers are assigned to internal R&D projects associated with our design IP business.
As part of our services offerings, we design advanced ICs, develop custom IP and help customers address design challenges. This enables us to target and accelerate the development of new software technology and products to satisfy current and future design requirements.
We offer engineering services to collaborate with our customers in the design of complex ICs and the implementation of key design capabilities, including low power design, IC packaging and board design, functional verification, digital implementation, analog/mixed-signal design and system-level design. The customers for these services primarily consist of semiconductor and systems companies developing products for the consumer, hyperscale computing, 5G communications, mobile, automotive, aerospace and defense, industrial and life science vertical sectors. These ICs range from digital SoCs and analog and RF designs to complex mixed-signal ICs.
The Cadence Cloud portfolio, which consists of Cadence-managed and customer-managed cloud environments, continues to expand, with additional cloud-based and software as a service (“SaaS”) products, including cloud-based solutions for SD&A and functional verification. Contractual arrangements with customers for both environments are generally time-based, similar to the on-premises software license arrangements described above, and may include usage-based terms.
In delivering methodology services, we leverage our experience and knowledge of design techniques, our products, leading practices and different design environments to enable improved productivity of our customers’ engineering teams. Depending on the customers’ projects and needs, we work with customers using outsourced, consultative and collaborative offerings.
Third-Party Programs and Initiatives
In addition to our products, many customers use design tools that are provided by other companies, as well as design IP available from alternative suppliers. We support the use of third-party design products and design IP through our Cadence Connections® program and through our participation in industry groups such as the Silicon Integration Initiative and Accellera System Initiative. We actively contribute to the development and deployment of industry standards.
Product and Maintenance and Services Revenue
Revenue, and revenue as a percentage of total revenue, from our product and maintenance and services offerings for the last three fiscal years were as follows:
| 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| (In millions, except percentages) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Product and maintenance | $ | 4,213 | 91 | % | $ | 3,834 | 94 | % | $ | 3,340 | 94 | % | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Services | 428 | 9 | % | 256 | 6 | % | 222 | 6 | % | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Total revenue | $ | 4,641 | $ | 4,090 | $ | 3,562 |
Recurring revenue includes revenue recognized over time from our software arrangements, services, royalties, maintenance on IP licenses and hardware, and operating leases of hardware. Recurring revenue also includes revenue recognized at varying points in time over the term of other arrangements with non-cancelable commitments, whereby the customer commits to a fixed dollar amount over a specified period of time that can be used to purchase from a list of products or services. These arrangements do not meet the definition of a revenue contract until the customer executes a separate selection form to identify the products and services that they are purchasing. Each separate selection form under the arrangement is treated as an individual contract and accounted for based on the respective performance obligations.
The remainder of our revenue is recognized at a point in time and is characterized as up-front revenue. Up-front revenue is primarily generated by sales of hardware and individual IP licenses and certain software licenses. The percentage of our recurring and up-front revenue is impacted by delivery of hardware and IP products to our customers in any single fiscal period.
For additional information and analysis on our revenue, including revenue by geography, see the discussion under “Results of Operations” under Part II, Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.” For our fiscal 2024 results of operations and our financial position as of December 31, 2024, see Part IV, Item 15, “Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedules.”
Remaining Performance Obligations
Revenue allocated to remaining performance obligations represents the transaction price allocated to the performance obligations that are unsatisfied, or partially unsatisfied, which includes unearned revenue and amounts that will be invoiced and recognized as revenue in future periods. We have elected to exclude the potential future royalty receipts from the remaining performance obligations. Contracted but unsatisfied performance obligations were approximately $6.8 billion as of December 31, 2024, which included $0.5 billion of non-cancelable commitments from customers where actual product selection and quantities of specific products or services are to be determined by customers at a later date.
We estimate our remaining performance obligations at a point in time. Actual amounts and timing of revenue recognition may differ from these estimates largely due to changes in actual installation and delivery dates, as well as contract renewals, modifications and terminations. As of December 31, 2024, we expected to recognize 54% of the contracted but unsatisfied performance obligations, excluding non-cancelable commitments, as revenue over the next 12 months, 42% over the next 13 to 36 months and the remainder thereafter.
Marketing and Sales
We generally market our products and provide services to existing and prospective customers through a direct sales force consisting of salespeople and applications engineers. Applications engineers provide technical pre-sales and post-sales support for our products. Due to the complexity of many of our products and the system design process, the sales cycle is generally long, requiring up to six months or longer. During the sales cycle, our direct sales force generally provides technical presentations, product demonstrations and support for on-site customer evaluation of our solutions. We also promote our products and services through advertising, marketing automation, trade shows, public relations and the internet. We selectively utilize value-added resellers to broaden our reach and reduce cost of sales. Our OrCAD products and certain Allegro products are primarily marketed through these channels. With respect to international sales, we generally market and support our products and services through our subsidiaries. We also use a third-party distributor to license our products and services to certain customers in Japan.
Research and Development
Our future performance depends on our ability to innovate, commercialize newly developed solutions and enhance and maintain our current products. The primary areas of our R&D align with our product categories discussed above. We must continuously adapt our products to solve new or increased physics challenges that arise with each successive process node and address the increase in complexity that is introduced by the resulting much larger designs. We must also keep pace with our customers’ technical developments, satisfy industry standards and meet our customers’ increasingly demanding performance, productivity, quality and predictability requirements. Therefore, we expect to continue to make significant investments in R&D.
Hardware Manufacturing and Software Distribution
Our hardware, including all individual PCBs, custom ICs and FPGA-based prototyping components, is manufactured, assembled and tested by subcontractors before delivery to our customers. Software and documentation are primarily distributed to customers by secure electronic delivery.
Proprietary Technology
Our success depends, in part, upon our proprietary technology. We generally rely on patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secret laws, licenses and restrictive agreements to establish and protect our proprietary rights in technology and products. Many of our products include software or other IP licensed from third parties. We may have to seek new licenses or renew existing licenses for third-party software and other IP in the future. As part of performing engineering services for customers, our engineering services business uses certain software and other IP licensed from third parties, including that of our competitors.
Governmental Regulations
We are subject to a variety of federal, state, local and foreign laws and regulations relating to our business and operations. These include, but are not limited to, laws and regulations related to trade controls, anti-corruption and anti-bribery, and data privacy and data protection and AI, as well as antitrust, competition, employment, income taxes and the environment.
Trade
We are subject to laws and regulations in the United States and other jurisdictions concerning the sale, shipment and transmission of our products and technology outside the United States and to foreign nationals, including tariffs, trade protection measures, import or export licensing requirements, sanctions and other trade regulations. The Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) of the U.S. Department of Commerce maintains and frequently adds entities to the “Entity List,” which limits our ability to deliver products and services to these entities, some of which are our customers. BIS has issued restrictions concerning advanced node IC production in China and other countries and extended controls to additional technologies, including electronic computer-aided design software specially designed for the development of advanced node ICs, and issued export controls related to the Chinese semiconductor manufacturing, advanced computing, and supercomputer industries. These restrictions and any subsequent restrictions may have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations or financial condition, either directly or by impacting our customers’ products, and restrict our ability to license or support our products to certain companies in China. Furthermore, increased restrictions on China exports may lead to regulatory retaliation by the Chinese government and possibly further escalate geopolitical tensions, and any such scenarios may adversely impact our business. The prospect of future export controls that are implemented in a similar manner may continue to have an ongoing impact on our business, results of operation, or financial conditions.
Trade regulations limiting or banning sales into certain countries or to certain companies, including economic and financial sanctions and trade embargoes administered and enforced by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”), have impacted our ability to transact business in certain countries and with certain customers. Future trade regulations may also impact our ability to transact business with certain customers and in certain countries and may restrict certain non-U.S. person employees from performing their duties at Cadence without first obtaining appropriate authorization if their duties involve an export, reexport, or transfer of export-controlled technology.
Anti-corruption and anti-bribery
We are subject to laws and regulations in the United States and other jurisdictions concerning anti-corruption and anti-bribery, including the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the U.K. Bribery Act, which prohibit corrupt payments to governmental officials and bribes to other persons.
Data privacy and data protection
We are subject to laws and regulations in the United States and other jurisdictions governing data privacy and data protection, including the EU/UK General Data Protection Regulation, which regulate our collection, handling and use of personal information.
The laws and regulations to which we are subject are complex and may change or develop over time, sometimes with limited or no advance notice. Developments or other changes in laws or regulations or how they are interpreted or enforced have had, and may continue to have, a negative impact on our business and increase our compliance-related expenditures.
Artificial intelligence
The regulatory framework governing the use of AI, machine learning and automated decision-making technologies (“AI Technologies”) is rapidly evolving. Many federal, state and foreign government bodies and agencies have introduced or are currently considering additional laws and regulations.
Already, certain existing legal regimes (e.g., relating to data privacy) regulate certain aspects of AI Technologies, and new laws regulating AI Technologies have been enacted in China, the United States and the European Union. In the United States, the Trump administration has rescinded an executive order relating to AI Technologies that was previously implemented by the Biden administration and may continue to rescind other existing federal orders and/or administrative policies relating to AI Technologies, or may implement new executive orders and/or other rule-making relating to AI Technologies in the future. U.S. legislation is also advancing at the state level. For example, the California Privacy Protection Agency is currently in the process of finalizing regulations under the California Consumer Privacy Act regarding the use of automated decision-making. The EU Artificial Intelligence Act (the “EU AI Act”) applies to companies that develop, use and/or provide AI in the EU and – depending on the AI use case - includes requirements around transparency, conformity assessments and monitoring, risk assessments, human oversight, security, accuracy, general purpose AI and foundation models, and fines for breach of up to 7% of worldwide annual turnover. Such additional regulations may impact our ability to develop, use and commercialize AI Technologies in the future.
For additional information regarding risks related to laws and regulations, including existing restrictions imposed by BIS, as well as international relations, see Item 1A, “Risk Factors.”
Competition
We compete most frequently with Synopsys, Inc., Siemens EDA, and ANSYS, Inc., and also with numerous other tools providers, electronics device manufacturers with their own EDA capabilities, technical or computational software companies, electronics design and consulting companies and other IP companies. These include U.S. based companies such as Keysight Technologies, Inc., Schrödinger, Inc. and CEVA, Inc. and foreign companies such as Zuken Ltd. (Japan) and emerging competitors in China like Huada Empyrean, Xpeedic, X-EPIC, Primarius Technologies, Univista and Giga-DA. Some of our competitors have made or may make acquisitions and/or have entered or may enter into partnerships or other strategic relationships which may alter their ability to compete with us.
Certain competitive factors in the engineering services business differ from those of the products businesses. While we compete with other computational software companies in the engineering services business, our principal competitors in this area include independent engineering service businesses. Many of these companies are also customers, and therefore use our product offerings in the delivery of their services or products.
For more information on risks related to competitive factors affecting our business, see the relevant discussions throughout Item 1A, “Risk Factors.”
Human Capital Resource Management
Our people are at the center of our success and drive the innovations that are enabling next-generation technologies. Cadence technology is highly specialized and deeply technical and our team represents some of the best and brightest in their fields. Our One Team culture is central to employees experience and enables us to attract and retain top talent in our industry. We regularly invest in key initiatives including, but not limited to, furthering belonging, physical and mental health, and talent development. To measure engagement and collect feedback from our employees, we administer regular employee engagement surveys.
Cadence leaders are tasked with creating and sustaining our culture and therefore, they are measured on their contributions to the attraction, development, engagement of high-caliber talent, and advancing our sustainability objectives.
Employees
As of December 31, 2024, we had approximately 12,700 employees. Our global workforce is highly educated, technical and specialized, with a substantial majority of employees working in engineering roles.
Compensation and Benefits
To inspire and recognize our employees, we offer competitive compensation and benefits programs. Our compensation programs link employee compensation to our business and individual performance. We also offer a semi-annual bonus program, 401(k) match, Employee Stock Purchase Plan and equity compensation. In addition, our employees are eligible to receive monetary awards from their colleagues through our peer-to-peer recognition program.
Talent Development
To help employees succeed in their current roles, pursue their passions and develop the skills necessary for advancement, we provide formal training programs and curriculums in addition to on-the-job training. Our high performance culture platform provides our employees with valuable resources such as a comprehensive online Learning Management program with training and development tools on a broad range of topics and skills. We also offer tuition reimbursement opportunities to employees to further hone their skills.
Social Impact and Community Outreach
We believe it is important to create meaningful opportunities for employees to connect and contribute to their communities. We provide paid volunteer time off, charitable contribution matching, company-wide volunteer campaigns, international service immersion projects and grants to employees who are giving back to their communities.
The Cadence Giving Foundation, established in 2021, is committed to providing Cadence employees and others a means through which to carry out their volunteer activities as well as making an impact on our focus areas of environmental sustainability and opportunities for all in science, technology, engineering and math (“STEM”) education. This is accomplished through various means, including grant making and partnerships with non-profit organizations committed to addressing these issues. We also make charitable contributions consisting of Cadence technology product donations.
Corporate Responsibility
We believe that, in general, the best and brightest talent is inclined to build a career with a responsible organization that positively impacts society. We are focused on doing our part to contribute to the health of the planet by actively investing in initiatives to reduce our environmental footprint.
Corporate Information
Our headquarters is located at 2655 Seely Avenue, San Jose, California 95134. Our telephone number is (408) 943-1234. We use our website at www.cadence.com to communicate important information about our company, including news releases and financial information. Our website permits investors to subscribe to email notification alerts when we post new material information on our website. We also make available on our investor relations webpage, free of charge, copies of our SEC filings and submissions, which can be found at the SEC’s website, www.sec.gov, as soon as reasonably practicable after electronically filing or furnishing such documents with the SEC. Stockholders may also request copies of these documents by writing to our Corporate Secretary at the address above. Website references are provided throughout this document for convenience only. The contents of these websites do not constitute a part of this Annual Report and shall not be deemed incorporated by reference into this Annual Report unless expressly noted.
Fiscal Year End
Historically, our fiscal years were 52- or 53-week periods ending on the Saturday closest to December 31. During fiscal 2022, our Board of Directors approved a change in our fiscal year end from the Saturday closest to December 31 of each year to December 31 of each year. The fiscal year change became effective beginning with our 2023 fiscal year, which began on January 1, 2023. Fiscal year 2022, which is included in this report for comparative purposes, represents a 52-week period.
INFORMATION ABOUT OUR EXECUTIVE OFFICERS
The following table provides information regarding our executive officers as of February 20, 2025:
| Name | Age | Positions and Offices | ||||||||||||
| Anirudh Devgan | 55 | President and Chief Executive Officer | ||||||||||||
| John M. Wall | 54 | Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer | ||||||||||||
| Paul Cunningham | 47 | Senior Vice President and General Manager of the System Verification Group | ||||||||||||
| Karna Nisewaner | 50 | Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary | ||||||||||||
| Chin-Chi Teng | 59 | Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Digital and Signoff Group | ||||||||||||
| Paul Scannell | 59 | Senior Vice President of Worldwide Field Operations |
Our executive officers are appointed by our Board of Directors and serve at the discretion of our Board of Directors.
ANIRUDH DEVGAN has served as Chief Executive Officer of Cadence since December 2021 and President of Cadence since November 2017. From May 2012 to November 2017, Dr. Devgan held several positions at Cadence, most recently as Executive Vice President, Research and Development from March 2017 to November 2017 and Senior Vice President, Research and Development from November 2013 to March 2017. Prior to joining Cadence, from May 2005 to March 2012, Dr. Devgan served as Corporate Vice President and General Manager of the Custom Design Business Unit at Magma Design Automation, Inc., an EDA company. Dr. Devgan has a B.Tech. in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and an M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.
JOHN M. WALL has served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Cadence since October 2017. From June 1997 to October 2017, Mr. Wall held several positions at Cadence, most recently as Corporate Vice President and Corporate Controller from April 2016 to October 2017, Vice President, Finance and Operations, Worldwide Revenue Accounting and Sales Finance from 2015 to 2016 and Vice President, Finance and Operations, EMEA and Worldwide Revenue Accounting from 2005 to 2015. Mr. Wall has an NCBS from the Institute of Technology, Tralee and is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants.
PAUL CUNNINGHAM has served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the System Verification Group of Cadence since March 2021. From August 2011 to March 2021, Dr. Cunningham held several positions at Cadence, most recently as Corporate Vice President of the System Verification Group beginning January 2018. Prior to joining Cadence, Dr. Cunningham was co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Azuro, Inc., a clock concurrent optimization company, that Cadence acquired in July 2011. Dr. Cunningham has an M.A. and Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
KARNA NISEWANER has served as Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Cadence since February 2024. From May 2011 to February 2024, Ms. Nisewaner held several positions at Cadence, most recently as Corporate Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary beginning in September 2022. Prior to joining Cadence, Ms. Nisewaner held in-house counsel roles at Intuit from 2007 to 2011 and IBM from 2003 to 2007. Ms. Nisewaner was in private practice focused on IP at Finnegan, Henderson, Farbow, Garrett, and Dunner, LLP from 2001 to 2003. Ms. Nisewaner has a B.S.E. in civil engineering and operations research from Princeton University and a J.D. from UCLA School of Law.
CHIN-CHI TENG has served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Digital and Signoff Group of Cadence since September 2018. From January 2002 to September 2018, Dr. Teng held several positions at Cadence, most recently as Corporate Vice President, Research and Development from June 2015 to September 2018, and Vice President, Research and Development from March 2009 to June 2015. Dr. Teng has a B.S. in electrical engineering from the National Taiwan University and a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
PAUL SCANNELL has served as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Field Operations of Cadence since May 2024. From 2005 to April 2024, Mr. Scannell held several positions at Cadence, including most recently as Corporate Vice President, Sales from June 2017 to April 2024. Prior to joining Cadence in 2005 through Cadence's acquisition of Verisity Ltd., Mr. Scannell served in key positions at Axis Systems, Inc., Synopsys, Inc. and Viewlogic Systems, Inc. Mr. Scannell has a B.S. in electrical engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology, an M.S. in electrical engineering from University of Southern California and an M.B.A. from Pepperdine University.
Item 1A. Risk Factors
Our operations and financial results are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including those described in the sections below, that could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows, liquidity, revenue, growth, prospects, demand for our products and services, reputation and the trading price of our common stock, and make an investment in us speculative or risky. The following does not summarize all of the risks that we face, and there may be additional risks or uncertainties that are currently unknown or not believed to be material that occur or become material.
Risk Factors Summary
Business and Operational Risks
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We have experienced varied operating results, and our operating results for any particular fiscal period are affected by the timing of revenue recognition, particularly for our hardware, IP and certain software products.
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Uncertainty in the global economy and instability within international relations, including changes in governmental policies relating to technology, and any potential downturn in the semiconductor and electronics industries, may negatively impact our business and reduce our bookings levels and revenue.
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We are subject to governmental export and import controls that could subject us to liability or impair our ability to compete in global markets as well as a variety of other laws and regulations.
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As we continue to acquire and invest in companies or technologies, we may not realize the expected business or financial benefits and these acquisitions could prove difficult to integrate, disrupt our business, dilute stockholder value and adversely affect our operating results and the market value of our common stock.
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We could suffer serious harm to our business because of the infringement or misappropriation of our IP rights by third parties.
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Our success is highly dependent upon the legal protection of our proprietary technology, as well as software and other IP rights licensed to us by third parties, and we cannot assure that the precautions taken to protect our rights will be adequate or that we will continue to be able to adequately secure such IP rights from third parties.
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We may not realize opportunities presented by AI and may incur reputational and financial harm and liability as a result of issues in the development and use of AI.
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Cyberattacks that compromise the confidentiality, integrity or availability of our or our third-party providers’ information technology systems or confidential information could materially harm our business, reputation and financial condition.
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Risks associated with our international operations could adversely impact our financial condition.
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The effect of foreign exchange rate fluctuations may adversely impact our revenue, expenses, cash flows and financial condition.
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We depend upon our management team and qualified employees, and our failure to attract, train, motivate and retain them may make us less competitive and therefore harm our results of operations.
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A significant portion of our cash is held and generated outside of the United States, and if our cash available in the United States is insufficient to meet our requirements in the United States, we may be required to raise cash in ways that could negatively affect our financial condition, results of operations and the market price of our common stock.
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The investment of our cash is subject to risks that may cause losses and affect the liquidity of these investments.
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The long sales cycle of our products and services may cause our operating results to fluctuate unexpectedly.
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We have incurred, and may in the future incur, substantial costs in connection with restructuring plans, which might not result in the benefits we anticipate, possibly having a negative effect on our future operating results.
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Our business is subject to the risk of natural disasters and global climate change.
Risks Related to Customers, Suppliers and Industry Competition
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Customer consolidation could affect our operating results.
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Our failure to respond quickly to technological developments or customers’ increasing technological requirements and to continue to develop or acquire technological capabilities could make our products uncompetitive and obsolete and impede our ability to address the requirements in technology segments that are expected to contribute to our growth.
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Our investment in research and development of new and existing products, technologies and services may affect our operating results, and our return on investment may be lower or develop more slowly than expected.
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Our operating results and revenue could be adversely affected by customer payment delays, customer bankruptcies and defaults, modifications or non-renewals of licenses.
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The competition in our industries is substantial, and we may not be able to continue to compete successfully.
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Our future revenue is dependent in part upon our installed customer base continuing to license or buy products and purchase services.
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We depend on a single supplier or a limited number of suppliers for certain hardware components and contract manufacturers for production of our hardware products, making us vulnerable to supply disruption and price fluctuation.
Tax, Regulatory and Litigation Risks
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Our results could be adversely affected by an increase in our effective tax rate as a result of U.S. and foreign tax law changes, outcomes of current or future tax examinations, or by material differences between our forecasted and actual effective tax rates.
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Litigation, government investigations or regulatory proceedings could adversely affect our financial condition and operations.
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Errors, defects or other issues with our products and services could expose us to liability and harm our business.
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Our reported financial results may be adversely affected by changes in United States generally accepted accounting principles, and we may incur significant costs to adjust our accounting systems and processes to comply with significant changes.
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If we become subject to unfair hiring claims, we could be prevented from hiring needed employees, incur liability for damages and incur substantial costs in defending ourselves.
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We are subject to evolving corporate governance, environmental and social practices and public disclosure expectations and regulations that impact compliance costs and risks of noncompliance.
Risks Related to Our Securities and Indebtedness
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Our stock price has been and may continue to be subject to fluctuations.
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The amount and frequency of our share repurchases may fluctuate, and we cannot guarantee that we will fully consummate our share repurchase authorization, or that it will enhance long-term stockholder value. Share repurchases could also increase the volatility of the trading price of our common stock and diminish our cash reserves.
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Our certificate of incorporation and bylaws and certain provisions under Delaware law could prevent an acquisition of our company or limit the price that investors might be willing to pay for our common stock.
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Our bylaws designate the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware as the exclusive forum for certain disputes between us and our stockholders.
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Our debt obligations expose us to risks that could adversely affect our business, operating results or financial condition, and could prevent us from fulfilling our obligations under such indebtedness.
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At the option of the holders of our outstanding notes, we may, under certain circumstances, be required to repurchase such notes.
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The terms of our debt agreements restrict our current and future operations, particularly our ability to respond to changes or to take certain actions.
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We may not be able to generate sufficient cash to service all of our indebtedness and may be forced to take other actions to satisfy our obligations under our indebtedness, which may
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Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments
None.
Item 1C. Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity Risk Management and Strategy
We have developed and implemented a cybersecurity risk management program intended to protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of our critical systems and information, including our customers’, vendors’, partners’ and employees’ data, including personal information.
Our cybersecurity risk management program is guided by frameworks and standards promulgated by the EU, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Cloud Security Alliance (“CSA”) and International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission (“ISO/IEC”). While we seek to maintain ISO/IEC 27001:2013 and ISO/IEC 27017:2015 certifications, and seek to achieve the SOC 2 Type 1 and Type 2 attestations, this does not imply that we specifically or comprehensively comply with technical specification or requirements, only that we use all the above-mentioned standards and regulations as a guide to help us identify, assess and manage cybersecurity risks relevant to our business.
Our cybersecurity risk management program is integrated into our overall risk oversight strategy and utilizes common reporting channels and governance processes that apply across other risk areas. We have a dedicated Chief Information Security Officer (“CISO”), who leads our Information Security team responsible for managing our cybersecurity processes, strategy and controls. Certain members of our Information Security team hold cybersecurity certifications, including the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (“CISSP”) and the Certified Information Systems Auditor (“CISA”) designations.
Our cybersecurity risk management program includes:
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a security incident response plan that includes procedures for responding to cybersecurity incidents;
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risk assessment processes designed to help identify cybersecurity risks to our critical systems, information, products, services and our broader enterprise IT environment;
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our Information Security team, principally responsible for identifying and mitigating cybersecurity risks, and managing our security controls and our response to cybersecurity incidents;
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the use of external service providers, where appropriate, to assess, test (including penetration test) or otherwise assist with certain aspects of our security controls and processes;
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global security operations center services through certain service providers;
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implementation of new hire and annual data privacy and cybersecurity training of employees, including senior management, and cybersecurity governance training for our Board of Directors;
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a cybersecurity insurance policy to cover certain types of costs and losses from cybersecurity incidents; and
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a third-party risk management process, including risk assessment and risk rating (using common vulnerability scoring system or similar methodologies based on industry practices), for certain service providers, suppliers and vendors.
We have not identified risks from known cybersecurity threats, including as a result of any prior cybersecurity incidents, that have materially affected or are reasonably likely to materially affect us, including our business strategy, results of operations, or financial condition.
Cybersecurity Governance
Our Board of Directors is responsible for overseeing our enterprise risk management activities in general, and our Board committees assist with certain aspects of risk oversight. With respect to cybersecurity risk, our Board of Directors shares certain of the oversight responsibility and processes with the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors (“Audit Committee”).
The Audit Committee, comprised entirely of independent directors, reviews and discusses with management our guidelines, policies and practices regarding risk assessment and risk management as they relate to our financial condition, and oversees our financial risk exposures, including planning regarding business continuity and cybersecurity. In addition, the Audit Committee oversees our annual enterprise business risk assessment, which includes the review of cybersecurity risks we face and our associated risk mitigation measures, and receives semi-annual reports from management on cybersecurity matters, including areas such as threat intelligence, major cybersecurity risk areas, regulations and cybersecurity incidents. In addition, management updates the Audit Committee, as necessary, regarding significant cybersecurity incidents, as well as any incidents with lesser impact potential.
The Audit Committee reports to the Board of Directors regarding its activities related to cybersecurity. In addition, the Board of Directors also directly receives reports from management on our cybersecurity risk profile and on the performance of our data privacy and cybersecurity risk management program, semi-annually in alternating quarters with the Audit Committee.
Our management team, including our Chief Information Officer (“CIO”), CISO and the General Counsel, is responsible for assessing and managing material risks from cybersecurity threats, including supervision of our internal security incident response team and our Disclosure Committee comprised of certain of our employees (including any applicable subcommittees thereof). Our management team has relevant expertise in the following:(i) understanding of cybersecurity risks in enterprise operations, including information technology, information security, product security, physical security and legal, (ii) experience in overseeing risk management and understanding risks faced by enterprise operations and (iii) significant operating experience allowing them to provide insight into developing, implementing and assessing our operating plan. In addition, our CISO has over 30 years of broad cybersecurity and information technology risk management experience, is a Certified Information Security Manager (“CISM”) and holds a Master's Degree in computer science and information systems.
Our management team supervises efforts to prevent, detect, mitigate and remediate cybersecurity risks and incidents, and is responsible for oversight and management of our cybersecurity risk management program. Our management team receives briefings from our internal Information Security team and the Disclosure Committee whenever applicable. Such briefings include information regarding threat intelligence and other information obtained from governmental, public or private sources, including external consultants engaged by us, and alerts and reports produced by security tools deployed in our information technology environment. Our management team also provides quarterly cybersecurity risk management program updates, to the Board of Directors or to the Audit Committee, in alternating quarters.
Item 2. Properties
We own land and buildings at our corporate headquarters located in San Jose, California. We also own properties in New Mexico, India, Greece and Italy. As of December 31, 2024, the total square footage of our owned buildings was approximately 1,330,000.
We lease additional facilities in the United States and various other countries. We may sublease certain of these facilities where space is not fully utilized.
We believe that these facilities are adequate for our current needs and that suitable additional or substitute space will be available as needed to accommodate any expansion of our operations.
Item 3. Legal Proceedings
For information regarding pending legal proceedings, related matters and associated risks, see Note 18 in the notes to consolidated financial statements under Item 15 of Part IV and the “Risk Factors” section under Item 1A of Part I of this Annual Report.
Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures
Not applicable.
PART II.
Item 5. Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities
Our common stock is traded on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol CDNS. As of January 31, 2025, we had 327 registered stockholders. Because many shares of our common stock are held by brokers and other institutions on behalf of stockholders, we are unable to estimate the total number of stockholders that are represented by these record holders.
Dividends
We have never declared or paid, and do not anticipate declaring or paying in the foreseeable future, any cash dividends on our common stock. Any future determination as to the declaration and payment of dividends, if any, will be at the discretion of our Board of Directors, subject to applicable laws and will depend on then existing conditions, including our financial condition, operating results, contractual restrictions, capital requirements, business prospects and other factors our Board of Directors may deem relevant.
Stockholder Return Performance Graph
The following graph compares the cumulative 5-year total stockholder return on our common stock relative to the cumulative total return of the Nasdaq Composite Index, the S&P 500 Index and the S&P 500 Information Technology Index. The graph assumes that the value of the investment in our common stock and in each index on December 28, 2019, (including reinvestment of dividends) was $100 and tracks it each year thereafter on the last day of our fiscal year through December 31, 2024, and for each index on the last day of the calendar year.

*$100 invested on 12/29/19 in stock or index, including reinvestment of dividends.
Indexes calculated on a month-end basis.
Copyright© 2025 Standard & Poor’s, a division of S&P Global. All rights reserved.
| 12/28/2019 | 1/2/2021 | 1/1/2022 | 12/31/2022 | 12/31/2023 | 12/31/2024 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cadence Design Systems, Inc. | $ | 100.00 | $ | 194.10 | $ | 265.12 | $ | 228.54 | $ | 387.49 | $ | 427.46 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nasdaq Composite | 100.00 | 144.92 | 177.06 | 119.45 | 172.77 | 223.87 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| S&P 500 | 100.00 | 118.40 | 152.39 | 124.79 | 157.59 | 197.02 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| S&P 500 Information Technology | 100.00 | 143.89 | 193.58 | 139.00 | 219.40 | 299.72 |
The stock price performance included in this graph is not necessarily indicative of future stock price performance.
Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities
We are authorized to repurchase shares of our common stock under a publicly announced program that was most recently increased by our Board of Directors on August 2, 2023. Pursuant to this authorization, we may repurchase shares from time to time through open market repurchases, in privately negotiated transactions or by other means, including accelerated share repurchase transactions or other structured repurchase transactions, block trades or pursuant to trading plans intended to comply with Rule 10b5-1 of the Exchange Act. The actual timing and amount of repurchases are subject to business and market conditions, corporate and regulatory requirements, stock price, acquisition opportunities and other factors. Our repurchase authorization does not obligate us to acquire a minimum amount of shares, does not have an expiration date and may be modified, suspended or terminated without prior notice.
The following table presents repurchases made under our publicly announced repurchase authorizations and shares surrendered by employees to satisfy income tax withholding obligations during the three months ended December 31, 2024:
| Period | Total Number of Shares Purchased (1) | Average Price Paid Per Share (2) | Total Number of Shares Purchased as Part of Publicly Announced Plans or Programs (3) | Maximum Dollar Value of Shares Authorized for Repurchase Under Publicly Announced Plan or Program (1) (In millions) | |||||||||||||||||||
| October 1, 2024 - October 31, 2024 | 230,867 | $ | 268.37 | 199,684 | $ | 923 | |||||||||||||||||
| November 1, 2024 - November 30, 2024 | 179,112 | $ | 295.39 | 162,073 | $ | 875 | |||||||||||||||||
| December 1, 2024 - December 31, 2024 | 164,036 | $ | 308.45 | 157,047 | $ | 827 | |||||||||||||||||
| Total | 574,015 | $ | 288.25 | 518,804 |
(1)Shares purchased that were not part of our publicly announced repurchase programs represent employee surrender of shares of restricted stock to satisfy employee income tax withholding obligations due upon vesting, and do not reduce the dollar value that may yet be purchased under our publicly announced repurchase programs.
(2)The weighted average price paid per share of common stock does not include the cost of commissions.
(3)Our publicly announced share repurchase program was originally announced on February 1, 2017, and most recently increased by an additional $1.0 billion on August 2, 2023.
Shares Authorized for Issuance under Equity Compensation Plans
The information required by Item 201(d) of Regulation S-K under Item 5 is incorporated herein by reference from the section entitled “Equity Compensation Plan Information” in our definitive proxy statement for our 2025 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.
Item 6. [Reserved]
Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations
The following discussion should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and notes thereto included elsewhere in this Annual Report and with Part I, Item 1A, “Risk Factors.” Please refer to the cautionary language at the beginning of Part I of this Annual Report regarding forward-looking statements.
Business Overview
Cadence® is a global market leader that develops computational, AI-driven software, accelerated hardware, and IP solutions for engineers and scientists to bring new and innovative products to life. The world’s most innovative technology companies use our solutions and services to deliver transformational products to multiple industries that drive the global economy. The products these companies develop are some of the most complex systems in the world. Since our inception, we have been at the forefront of technology innovation. We work closely with our customers, helping them solve their most complex challenges in the semiconductor and electronic systems industries to unlock limitless opportunities.
Our strategy allows us to deliver solutions to our customers to solve their most complex product development challenges. Our industry-leading computational software, specialized accelerated hardware, and IP enable us to adapt to our customer’s dynamic design requirements, allowing them to meet their critical business and environmental concerns including time-to-market and sustainability. The creation of even the most seemingly simple electronic systems and products often requires a complex design process and requires highly trained engineers with various areas of specialized knowledge and skill sets. Our ability to deliver innovative products that keep up with increasing complexity allows our customers to be successful in meeting their business goals and objectives.
We group our products into the following categories:
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Core EDA
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IP; and
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System Design and Analysis.
For additional information about our products, see the discussion in Item 1, “Business,” under the heading “Product Categories.”
Management uses certain performance indicators to manage our business, including revenue, certain elements of operating expenses and cash flow from operations, and we describe these items further below under the headings “Results of Operations” and “Liquidity and Capital Resources.”
Recent Acquisitions
Consistent with our Intelligent System Design strategy, during the first quarter of fiscal 2024, we completed our acquisition of Invecas, a leading provider of design engineering, embedded software and system-level solutions. We believe the addition of a skilled engineering team with vast experience in delivering end-to-end system solutions with deep expertise in advanced nodes, mixed-signal, verification, embedded software, packaging and turnkey custom silicon production will enhance our ability to pursue attractive opportunities in the markets we serve. Revenue and cost of revenue associated with contracts assumed with our acquisition of Invecas is primarily classified as services revenue and cost of services in our consolidated income statements.
During the second quarter of fiscal 2024, we completed our acquisition of BETA CAE, a system analysis platform provider of multi-domain, engineering simulation solutions. The acquisition of BETA CAE expands our multiphysics system analysis suite with highly complementary products, enabling us to offer a more comprehensive portfolio to customers in the automotive sector and at companies in the aerospace, industrial and healthcare industries. Revenue associated with contracts assumed with our acquisition of BETA CAE is primarily classified as product and maintenance revenue in our System Design and Analysis product category. Cost of revenue associated with these contracts is primarily classified as cost of product and maintenance in our consolidated income statements.
Macroeconomic and Geopolitical Environment
Because we operate globally, our business is subject to the effects of economic downturns or recessions in the regions in which we do business, volatility in foreign currency exchange rates relative to the U.S. dollar, inflation, changing interest rates, expanded trade control laws and regulations, potential imposition of new or higher tariffs and geopolitical conflicts.
We have been impacted by the continued expansion of trade control laws and regulations, including certain export control restrictions concerning advanced node IC production in China, the inclusion of additional Chinese technology companies on the Bureau of Industry and Security “Entity List” and regulations governing the sale of certain technologies. Based on our current assessments, we expect the impact of these expanded trade control laws and regulations on our business to be limited. In addition, President Trump has announced the imposition of broad-based tariffs on imports from many countries, including China and Mexico. We are monitoring the imposition of these new or higher tariffs, including any pauses on the tariffs imposed, and will assess their potential impact on our business either directly, such as on our hardware business, or due to downstream effects.
We also continuously monitor geopolitical conflicts around the world, including the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine and conflicts in the Middle East, and assess their impact on our business. To date, these conflicts have not materially limited our ability to develop or support our products and have not had a material impact on our results of operations, financial condition, liquidity or cash flows.
While our business model provides some resilience against these factors, we will continue to monitor the direct and indirect impacts of these or similar circumstances on our business and financial results. For additional information on the potential impact of macroeconomic conditions on our business, see Part I, Item 1A, “Risk Factors.”
Results of Operations
The discussion of our fiscal 2024 consolidated results of operations includes year-over-year comparisons to fiscal 2023 for revenue, cost of revenue, operating expenses, operating margin, other non-operating income and expenses, income taxes and cash flows. For a discussion of the fiscal 2023 changes compared to fiscal 2022, see the discussion in Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023, filed with the SEC on February 14, 2024.
Results of operations for fiscal 2024, as compared to fiscal 2023, reflect the following:
-
Growth in revenue from our software, services, IP and hardware offerings;
-
Continued investment in research and development activities and technical sales support, including headcount from acquisitions;
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Incremental costs for professional services; and
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Increased interest expense from our indebtedness.
Revenue
We primarily generate revenue from licensing our software and IP, selling or leasing our hardware products, providing maintenance for our software, hardware and IP, providing engineering services and earning royalties generated from the use of our IP. The timing of our revenue is significantly affected by the mix of software, hardware and IP products generating revenue in any given period and whether the revenue is recognized over time or at a point in time, upon completion of delivery.
Recurring revenue includes revenue recognized over time from our software arrangements, services, royalties, maintenance on IP licenses and hardware products, and operating leases of hardware. Recurring revenue also includes revenue recognized at varying points in time over the term of other arrangements with non-cancelable commitments, whereby the customer commits to a fixed dollar amount over a specified period of time that can be used to purchase from a list of products or services.
The remainder of our
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Item 7A. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk
Foreign Currency Risk
A material portion of our revenue, expenses and business activities are transacted in the U.S. dollar. In certain foreign countries where we price our products and services in U.S. dollars, a decrease in value of the local currency relative to the U.S. dollar results in an increase in the prices for our products and services compared to those products of our competitors that are priced in local currency. This could result in our prices being uncompetitive in certain markets.
In certain countries where we may invoice customers in the local currency, our revenue benefits from a weaker dollar and is adversely affected by a stronger dollar. The opposite impact occurs in countries where we record expenses in local currencies. In those cases, our costs and expenses benefit from a stronger dollar and are adversely affected by a weaker dollar. The fluctuations in our operating expenses outside the United States resulting from volatility in foreign exchange rates are not generally moderated by corresponding fluctuations in revenue from existing contracts.
We enter into foreign currency forward exchange contracts to protect against currency exchange risks associated with existing assets and liabilities. A foreign currency forward exchange contract acts as a hedge by increasing in value when underlying assets decrease in value or underlying liabilities increase in value due to changes in foreign exchange rates. Conversely, a foreign currency forward exchange contract decreases in value when underlying assets increase in value or underlying liabilities decrease in value due to changes in foreign exchange rates. These forward contracts are not designated as accounting hedges, so the unrealized gains and losses are recognized in other income (expense), net, in advance of the actual foreign currency cash flows with the fair value of these forward contracts being recorded as accrued liabilities or other current assets.
We do not use forward contracts for trading purposes. Our forward contracts generally have maturities of 90 days or less. We enter into foreign currency forward exchange contracts based on estimated future asset and liability exposures, and the effectiveness of our hedging program depends on our ability to estimate these future asset and liability exposures. Recognized gains and losses with respect to our current hedging activities will ultimately depend on how accurately we are able to match the amount of foreign currency forward exchange contracts with actual underlying asset and liability exposures.
The following table provides information about our foreign currency forward exchange contracts as of December 31, 2024. The information is provided in U.S. dollar equivalent amounts. The table presents the notional amounts, at contract exchange rates, and the weighted average contractual foreign currency exchange rates expressed as units of the foreign currency per U.S. dollar, which in some cases may not be the market convention for quoting a particular currency. All of these forward contracts mature during February 2025.
| Notional Principal | Weighted Average Contract Rate | ||||||||||
| (In millions) | |||||||||||
| Forward Contracts: | |||||||||||
| British pound | $ | 205.3 | 0.79 | ||||||||
| European union euro | 165.1 | 0.94 | |||||||||
| Chinese renminbi | 124.3 | 7.25 | |||||||||
| Swiss franc | 106.2 | 0.89 | |||||||||
| Japanese yen | 101.7 | 154.4 | |||||||||
| Israeli shekel | 74.9 | 3.69 | |||||||||
| Swedish krona | 52.4 | 10.93 | |||||||||
| Indian rupee | 49.1 | 84.99 | |||||||||
| Canadian dollar | 28.2 | 1.4 | |||||||||
| Taiwan dollar | 14.9 | 32.54 | |||||||||
| South Korean Won | 3.4 | 1,399.26 | |||||||||
| Singapore dollar | 2.1 | 1.34 | |||||||||
| Total | $ | 927.6 | |||||||||
| Estimated fair value | $ | (7.5) |
As of December 31, 2023, our foreign currency exchange contracts had an aggregate principal amount of $697.9 million, and an estimated fair value of $9.3 million.
We have performed sensitivity analyses as of December 31, 2024, and December 31, 2023, using a modeling technique that measures the change in the fair values arising from a hypothetical 10% change in the value of the U.S. dollar relative to applicable foreign currency exchange rates, with all other variables held constant. The foreign currency exchange rates we used in performing the sensitivity analysis were based on market rates in effect at each respective date. The sensitivity analyses indicated that a hypothetical 10% decrease in the value of the U.S. dollar would result in an increase to the fair value of our foreign currency forward exchange contracts of $18.3 million and a decrease of $18.4 million as of December 31, 2024 and December 31, 2023, respectively, while a hypothetical 10% increase in the value of the U.S. dollar would result in a decrease to the fair value of our foreign currency forward exchange contracts of $12.7 million and an increase of $20.4 million as of December 31, 2024 and December 31, 2023, respectively.
We actively monitor our foreign currency risks, but our foreign currency hedging activities may not substantially offset the impact of fluctuations in currency exchange rates on our results of operations, cash flows and financial position.
Interest Rate Risk
Our exposure to market risk for changes in interest rates relates primarily to our portfolio of cash, cash equivalents, investments in debt securities and any balances outstanding on our 2024 Credit Facility. We are exposed to interest rate fluctuations in many of the world’s leading industrialized countries, but our interest income and expense is most sensitive to fluctuations in the general level of United States interest rates. In this regard, changes in United States interest rates affect the interest earned on our cash and cash equivalents and the costs associated with foreign currency hedges. All highly liquid securities with a maturity of three months or less at the date of purchase are considered to be cash equivalents. The carrying value of our interest-bearing instruments approximated fair value as of December 31, 2024.
Our investments in debt securities had a fair value of approximately $50.3 million and $49.8 million as of December 31, 2024 and December 31, 2023, respectively, that may decline in value if market interest rates rise. As of December 31, 2024 and December 31, 2023, an increase in the market rates of interest of 1% would result in a decrease in the fair values of our marketable debt securities by approximately $2.0 million and $2.6 million, respectively.
Interest rates under our 2024 Credit Facility are variable, so interest expense could be adversely affected by increases in interest rates, particularly for periods when we maintain an outstanding balance. As of December 31, 2024, there were no borrowings outstanding under our 2024 Credit Facility. Our 2025 Term Loan and 2026 Term Loan, which had variable interest rates, were prepaid in full in September 2024.
Interest rates for our 2024 Credit Facility can fluctuate based on changes in market interest rates and in interest rate margins that vary based on the credit ratings of our unsecured debt. Assuming our 2024 Credit Facility was fully drawn and we were to fully exercise our right to increase borrowing capacity under our 2024 Credit Facility, each quarter point change in interest rates would result in a $4.4 million change in annual interest expense on our indebtedness under our 2024 Credit Facility. For an additional description of the 2024 Credit Facility, see Note 5 in the notes to consolidated financial statements.
Equity Price Risk
Equity Investments
We have a portfolio of equity investments that includes marketable equity securities and non-marketable investments. Our equity investments are made primarily in connection with our strategic investment program. Under our strategic investment program, from time to time, we make cash investments in companies with technologies that are potentially strategically important to us. See Note 14 in the notes to consolidated financial statements for an additional description of these investments.
Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data
The financial statements required by Item 8 are submitted as a separate section of this Annual Report. See Part IV, Item 15, “Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedules.”
Item 9. Changes in and Disagreements with Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure
None.
Item 9A. Controls and Procedures
Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures
As required by Rule 13a-15 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”) under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including our Chief Executive Officer (“CEO”) and our Chief Financial Officer (“CFO”), we evaluated the effectiveness of the design and operation of our disclosure controls and procedures (as defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) under the Exchange Act) as of December 31, 2024.
Based on their evaluation our CEO and CFO have concluded that, as of December 31, 2024, our disclosure controls and procedures were effective to provide reasonable assurance that the information required to be disclosed by us in our reports filed or submitted under the Exchange Act is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in the SEC’s rules and forms and is accumulated and communicated to our management, including the CEO and CFO, as appropriate to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure.
Changes in Internal Control Over Financial Reporting
There were no changes in our internal control over financial reporting during the fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2024, that materially affected, or are reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.
Inherent Limitations on Effectiveness of Controls
Our management, including our CEO and CFO, does not expect that our disclosure controls and procedures or our internal control over financial reporting will prevent or detect all errors and all fraud. Internal control over financial reporting, no matter how well conceived and operated, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance that the objectives of internal control are met. Further, the design of internal control must reflect the fact that there are resource constraints, and the benefits of the control must be considered relative to their costs. While our disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting are designed to provide reasonable assurance of their effectiveness, because of the inherent limitations in all control systems, no evaluation of controls can provide absolute assurance that all control issues and instances of fraud, if any, within Cadence, have been detected.
Management’s Annual Report on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting
Our management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting (as defined in Rule 13a-15(f) under the Exchange Act). Our management assessed the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2024. In making this assessment, our management used the criteria established in Internal Control-Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (“COSO”). In accordance with guidance issued by the SEC staff, companies are permitted to exclude acquisitions from their assessment of internal control over financial reporting for a period not to exceed one year from the date of the acquisition. Our assessment of the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2024 excluded BETA CAE, which we acquired on May 30, 2024. The financial results of BETA CAE, a wholly-owned subsidiary, included in our consolidated financial statements since the date of acquisition constituted less than 2% of total consolidated assets and less than 2% of total consolidated revenue as of and for the year ended December 31, 2024.
Our management has concluded that, as of December 31, 2024, our internal control over financial reporting is effective based on these criteria. Our independent registered public accounting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, has issued an attestation report on our internal control over financial reporting, which is included in Part IV, Item 15, “Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedules.”
Item 9B. Other Information
Insider Trading Arrangements
During the fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2024, our directors and officers (as defined in Rule 16a-1(f) under the Exchange Act) adopted or terminated the contracts, instructions or written plans for the purchase or sale of our securities set forth in the table below.
| Type of Trading Arrangement | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Name and Position | Action | Adoption/ Termination Date | Rule 10b5-1* | Total Shares of Common Stock to be Sold | Expiration Date | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ita Brennan, Director | Adoption | 12/12/2024 | X | Up to 720 | 3/16/2026 |
- Contract, instruction or written plan intended to satisfy the affirmative defense conditions of Rule 10b5-1(c) under the Exchange Act.
Item 9C. Disclosure Regarding Foreign Jurisdictions that Prevent Inspections
Not applicable.
PART III.
Item 10. Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance
We have an insider trading policy (the “Securities Trading Policy”) governing the purchase, sale and other dispositions of our securities that applies to all of our personnel, including directors, officers, employees, and other covered persons. We also follow procedures for our repurchase of our securities. We believe that our Securities Trading Policy and repurchase procedures are reasonably designed to promote compliance with applicable insider trading laws, rules and regulations, and listing standards. A copy of our Securities Trading Policy is filed as Exhibit 19.1 to this Form 10-K.
The information required by Item 10 as to directors is incorporated herein by reference from the sections entitled “Proposal 1 - Election of Directors” and, as applicable, “Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management - Delinquent Section 16(a) Reports” in our definitive proxy statement for our 2025 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. Our executive officers are listed at the end of Item 1 of Part I of this Annual Report.
The information required by Item 10 as to Cadence’s code of ethics is incorporated herein by reference from the section entitled “Corporate Governance - Code of Business Conduct” in our definitive proxy statement for our 2025 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.
The information required by Item 10 as to the director nomination process and our Audit Committee is incorporated by reference from the section entitled “Board of Directors - Committees of the Board” in our definitive proxy statement for our 2025 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.
Item 11. Executive Compensation
The information required by Item 11 is incorporated herein by reference from the sections entitled “Board of Directors - Components of Director Compensation,” “Board of Directors - Director Compensation for Fiscal 2024,” “Compensation Discussion and Analysis,” “Compensation Committee Report,” “Compensation Committee Interlocks and Insider Participation,” “Compensation of Executive Officers,” “Potential Payments Upon Termination or Change In Control” and “Pay Ratio Disclosure” in our definitive proxy statement for our 2025 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.
Item 12. Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters
The information required by Item 12 is incorporated herein by reference from the sections entitled “Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management” and “Equity Compensation Plan Information” in our definitive proxy statement for our 2025 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.
Item 13. Certain Relationships and Related Transactions and Director Independence
The information required by Item 13 is incorporated herein by reference from the sections entitled “Certain Transactions” and “Board of Directors - Director Independence” in our definitive proxy statement for our 2025 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.
Item 14. Principal Accountant Fees and Services
The information required by Item 14 is incorporated herein by reference from the section entitled “Fees Billed to Cadence by the Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm During Fiscal 2024 and 2023” in our definitive proxy statement for our 2025 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.
PART IV.
Item 15. Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedules
| Page | ||||||||
| (a) 1. Financial Statements | ||||||||
| Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm (Auditor Firm ID 238) | 51 | |||||||
| Consolidated Balance Sheets as of December 31, 2024, and December 31, 2023 | 53 | |||||||
| Consolidated Income Statements for the three fiscal years ended December 31, 2024 | 54 | |||||||
| Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Income for the three fiscal years ended December 31, 2024 | 55 | |||||||
| Consolidated Statements of Stockholders’ Equity for the three fiscal years ended December 31, 2024 | 56 | |||||||
| Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows for the three fiscal years ended December 31, 2024 | 57 | |||||||
| Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements | 58 | |||||||
| (a) 2. Financial Statement Schedules | ||||||||
| All financial statement schedules are omitted because they are not applicable, not required or the required information is shown in the consolidated financial statements or notes thereto. | ||||||||
| (a) 3. Exhibits | 96 | |||||||
The exhibits listed in the accompanying Exhibit Index are filed or incorporated by reference as part of this Annual Report.
The exhibits filed or incorporated by reference as part of this Annual Report contain agreements to which Cadence is a party. These agreements are included to provide information regarding their terms and are not intended to provide any other factual or disclosure information about Cadence or the other parties to the agreements. Certain of the agreements contain representations and warranties by each of the parties to the applicable agreement, and any such representations and warranties have been made solely for the benefit of the other parties to the applicable agreement as of specified dates, may apply materiality standards that are different than those applied by investors, and may be subject to important qualifications and limitations that are not necessarily reflected in the agreement. Accordingly, these representations and warranties may not describe the actual state of affairs as of the date they were made or at any other time and should not be relied upon as statements of factual information.
_____________
© 2025 Cadence Design Systems, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Cadence, the Cadence logo, and the other Cadence marks found at www.cadence.com/go/trademarks are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.
Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm
To the Board of Directors and Stockholders of Cadence Design Systems, Inc.
Opinions on the Financial Statements and Internal Control over Financial Reporting
We have audited the accompanying consolidated balance sheets of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. and its subsidiaries (the “Company”) as of December 31, 2024 and 2023, and the related consolidated statements of income, of comprehensive income, of stockholders’ equity and of cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended December 31, 2024, including the related notes (collectively referred to as the “consolidated financial statements”). We also have audited the Company’s internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2024, based on criteria established in Internal Control - Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO).
In our opinion, the consolidated financial statements referred to above present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the Company as of December 31, 2024 and 2023, and the results of its operations and its cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended December 31, 2024 in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America. Also in our opinion, the Company maintained, in all material respects, effective internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2024, based on criteria established in Internal Control - Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the COSO.
Basis for Opinions
The Company’s management is responsible for these consolidated financial statements, for maintaining effective internal control over financial reporting, and for its assessment of the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting, included in Management’s Annual Report on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting appearing under Item 9A. Our responsibility is to express opinions on the Company’s consolidated financial statements and on the Company’s internal control over financial reporting based on our audits. We are a public accounting firm registered with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) (PCAOB) and are required to be independent with respect to the Company in accordance with the U.S. federal securities laws and the applicable rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the PCAOB.
We conducted our audits in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audits to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the consolidated financial statements are free of material misstatement, whether due to error or fraud, and whether effective internal control over financial reporting was maintained in all material respects.
Our audits of the consolidated financial statements included performing procedures to assess the risks of material misstatement of the consolidated financial statements, whether due to error or fraud, and performing procedures that respond to those risks. Such procedures included examining, on a test basis, evidence regarding the amounts and disclosures in the consolidated financial statements. Our audits also included evaluating the accounting principles used and significant estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the consolidated financial statements. Our audit of internal control over financial reporting included obtaining an understanding of internal control over financial reporting, assessing the risk that a material weakness exists, and testing and evaluating the design and operating effectiveness of internal control based on the assessed risk. Our audits also included performing such other procedures as we considered necessary in the circumstances. We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for our opinions.
As described in Management’s Annual Report on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting, management has excluded BETA CAE Systems International AG (“BETA CAE”) from its assessment of internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2024, because it wa
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Item 16. Form 10-K Summary
None.
SIGNATURES
Pursuant to the requirements of Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned, thereunto duly authorized.
| CADENCE DESIGN SYSTEMS, INC. | |||||
| /s/ Anirudh Devgan | |||||
| Anirudh Devgan | |||||
| President and Chief Executive Officer | |||||
| Dated: | February 20, 2025 |
Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, this report has been signed below by the following persons on behalf of the registrant and in the capacities and on the dates indicated.
| /s/ Anirudh Devgan | DATE: | February 20, 2025 | ||||||
| Anirudh Devgan | ||||||||
| President and Chief Executive Officer | ||||||||
| (Principal Executive Officer) | ||||||||
| /s/ John M. Wall | DATE: | February 20, 2025 | ||||||
| John M. Wall | ||||||||
| Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer | ||||||||
| (Principal Financial and Accounting Officer) |
POWER OF ATTORNEY
KNOW ALL PERSONS BY THESE PRESENTS, that each person whose signature appears below constitutes and appoints Anirudh Devgan, John M. Wall and Karna Nisewaner, and each of them, as his or her true and lawful attorneys-in-fact and agents, with full power of substitution and resubstitution, for him or her and in his or her name, place and stead, in any and all capacities, to sign any and all amendments (including post-effective amendments) to this Report on Form 10-K, and to file the same, with all exhibits thereto, and other documents in connection therewith, with the Securities and Exchange Commission, granting unto said attorneys-in-fact and agents, and each of them, full power and authority to do and perform each and every act and thing requisite and necessary to be done in connection therewith, as fully to all intents and purposes as he or she might or could do in person, hereby ratifying and confirming all that said attorneys-in-fact and agents, or any of them, or their, his or her substitute or substitutes, may lawfully do or cause to be done by virtue hereof.
Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, this report has been signed below by the following persons on behalf of the registrant and in the capacities and on the dates indicated:
| /s/ | Mary Louise Krakauer | February 20, 2025 | ||||||||||||
| Mary Louise Krakauer, Chair | ||||||||||||||
| /s/ | Mark W. Adams | February 20, 2025 | ||||||||||||
| Mark W. Adams, Director | ||||||||||||||
| /s/ | Ita Brennan | February 20, 2025 | ||||||||||||
| Ita Brennan, Director | ||||||||||||||
| /s/ | Lewis Chew | February 20, 2025 | ||||||||||||
| Lewis Chew, Director | ||||||||||||||
| /s/ | Anirudh Devgan | February 20, 2025 | ||||||||||||
| Anirudh Devgan, Director | ||||||||||||||
| /s/ | Moshe Gavrielov | February 20, 2025 | ||||||||||||
| Moshe Gavrielov, Director | ||||||||||||||
| /s/ | Julia Liuson | February 20, 2025 | ||||||||||||
| Julia Liuson, Director | ||||||||||||||
| /s/ | Dr. James D. Plummer | February 20, 2025 | ||||||||||||
| Dr. James D. Plummer, Director | ||||||||||||||
| /s/ | Dr. Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli | February 20, 2025 | ||||||||||||
| Dr. Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli, Director | ||||||||||||||
| /s/ | Young K. Sohn | February 20, 2025 | ||||||||||||
| Young K. Sohn, Director |