volume 2 — issue 4
December 12, 2003

Another Good Year for IP -- and for CAST

All of us at CAST want to wish all of you the very best for the holiday period and a prosperous new year!

2003 has been an exciting year for us, as more and more designers see commercial IP as the best way to go and interest in CAST cores continues to grow.

CAST customers have recently purchased JPEG, MPEG-4, USB 2.0, and many cores from our popular 8051 series, and it looks like we'll close the year with at least 50% revenue growth over last year. This on top of last year's 49% growth compares nicely with the predicted 16% IP market growth for this year and 5% actual market growth for last year according to Gartner/Dataquest!

I think this type of growth -- especially in light of sluggish semiconductor market figures -- validates our belief that the use of high quality, well-supported IP is an important design strategy to remain competitive in today's cost-conscious marketplace.

It's also interesting to see the change in sales by region. Asia continues to be the biggest consumer of CAST cores, but dropped from 48% of our sales in 2002 to 45% in 2003. The US also dropped a bit, but the biggest change has been significant growth in our European sales, from 11% to 19% of total revenue.

Part of the reason for this solid European improvement is an increased understanding and growing acceptance of IP-based design in general. But our sales were also boosted this year by our new European Headquarters in the UK, enabling us to provide even better support and greater focus on European opportunities. The breadth of our product line and our ability to address FPGA through ASIC design methodologies also stands out in the European market.

2004 IP Preview

We're nearing completion on development and plans for new cores in 2004. We're committed to expanding our PCI and PCI Express development activities in our Czech Republic Design Center, and new products will follow soon. You can also expect to see more in-demand technologies like USB On-the-Go, USB Host, and Firewire, as well as enhancements to our popular JPEG line to make it even easier to match core capabilities and cost with your specific application requirements.

We also have initiatives to make our product documentation even better -- along the lines of the VSIA/FSA QIP initiative -- and of course we remain committed to making fast and effective customer support one of our highest priorities.

Stop by and visit CAST at upcoming trade shows -- or drop us an email any time -- and let us know what you'd like to see from CAST IP in 2004.

-- Hal Barbour, President, hal@cast-inc.com

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