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Makes electronic design automation (EDA) software engineers use to design and verify computer chips.
Makes electronic design automation (EDA) software engineers use to design and verify computer chips.
Sells design software mainly on multi-year licences that renew, and also sells emulation machines, the specialist hardware chipmakers use to test designs before manufacture. A third line is ready-made circuit blocks, called IP, licensed to chip designers.
Moat: wide (switching costs, IP / patents, installed base). Chip design flows are built around EDA tools over years; switching mid-design is essentially impossible.
Headquarters: San Jose, California, US · Founded: 1988 · Employees: 13,800
Size Cadence Design Systems (CDNS) is a United States Information Technology company (Packaged Software) with a market value of $87.8B, the 150th largest of 3,117 United States companies the cockpit tracks. Shares closed at $319.92 on 6 Nov 2026.
Performance Over six months the shares fell 11.8%, against +9.4% for the median peer and -1.1% for the United States market (cap-weighted) — 4th lowest of 21 in its peer set.
Growth Revenue grew 17.6% over the last twelve months (peer median +23.1%); the operating margin is 29.9% (peer median 9.9%).
Valuation It trades at 34.0× forward earnings against a peer median of 22.4× (7th most expensive of 20).
Price implies For today's price to make sense, revenue must grow about 30% a year for seven years (Req g). Recent delivered growth is +15%, so the hurdle is +15 pp: the price needs faster growth than the company has been delivering — of companies that just grew 25–50% a year, 93.8% slowed down over the next four years.
Capital Return on invested capital runs 7.6 points above its cost of capital (10.2% WACC).
Backlog Backlog (remaining performance obligations) was $8.20B at 30 Sep 2026, up 17% on a year earlier — 1.3 years of trailing revenue. Backlog detail →
Credit Cadence Design Systems has 3 bonds outstanding ($2.50B), rated A- by the agencies and trading like A at a weighted spread of 69 bp.
Short interest Short interest is 2.0% of the free float (15 Oct 2026).
Next results Next results expected around 23 Feb 2027 (exchange calendar; dates can move).
| TTM | FY2025 | FY2024 | FY2023 | FY2022 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $6.13B | $5.30B | $4.64B | $4.09B | $3.56B |
| Revenue growth | — | +14% | +13% | +15% | — |
| Gross profit | $5.15B | $4.53B | $3.96B | $3.64B | $3.17B |
| EBITDA | $2.22B | $1.90B | $1.58B | $1.41B | $1.21B |
| Net income | $1.38B | $1.11B | $1.06B | $1.04B | $849M |
| Free cash flow | $1.76B | $1.59B | $1.12B | $1.25B | $1.12B |
| Capital expenditure | $204M | $142M | $143M | $103M | $124M |
| Total debt | $2.81B | $2.67B | $2.63B | $806M | $924M |
The default views of Competitor Analysis ▸ Charts, drawn from the same data. Open them in the cockpit to change the axes, pin companies and read every value.
| Company | Market cap | 6M return | Revenue growth | Op. margin | Forward P/E | Req g |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cadence Design Systems CDNS | $87.8B | -12% | +18% | 30% | 34.0× | 29.9% |
| Synopsys SNPS | $86.3B | -13% | +46% | 12% | 25.6× | 39.2% |
| Siemens SIE.DE | $225B | -4% | +4% | 13% | 23.4× | 18.3% |
| Keysight Technologies KEYS | $46.3B | -24% | +26% | 24% | 20.3× | 20.9% |
| Silvaco SVCO | n/a | -39% | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| Empyrean Technology 301269.SZ | $7.70B | +5% | +15% | -10% | 357.4× | n/a |
| Zuken 6947.T | $699M | +12% | +12% | 14% | 18.5× | -6.8% |
Peer set: Industry: the same industry and sector in any market, nearest in size. This is the same default set the interactive Competitor Analysis opens with.
| Measure | CDNS | Peer median | Rank in peer set |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-month return | -8.3% | -7.5% | 11th highest of 21 |
| 6-month return | -11.8% | +9.4% | 4th lowest of 21 |
| Distance from 52-week high | -23.2% | -31.1% | 7th highest of 21 |
| Revenue growth (TTM) | +17.6% | +23.1% | 8th lowest of 21 |
| Operating margin | 29.9% | 9.9% | 3rd highest of 21 |
| Forward P/E | 34.0× | 22.4× | 7th most expensive of 20 |
| Growth the price implies (Req g, 7 yrs) | 29.9% | 28.2% | 8th most demanding of 18 |
| Growth delivered (Del g) | +14.6% | +23.5% | 8th lowest of 18 |
| Hurdle (Req g minus delivered) | +15.4 pp | +2.4 pp | 4th most demanding of 18 |
| ROIC minus cost of capital | +7.6 pp | -1.7 pp | 7th highest of 21 |
| EV / EBITDA | 40.1× | 24.1× | 4th most expensive of 14 |
| Net debt / EBITDA | 0.6× | 0.1× | 8th most indebted of 20 |
| Bond spread | 69 bp | 95 bp | 2nd tightest of 15 |
| Company | Market | Market cap | 6M return | Revenue growth | Op. margin | Forward P/E | Req g | Delivered g |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cadence Design Systems CDNS | United States | $87.8B | -12% | +18% | 30% | 34.0× | 29.9% | +14.6% |
| Synopsys SNPS | United States | $86.3B | -13% | +46% | 12% | 25.6× | 39.2% | +13.9% |
| Intuit INTU | United States | $91.3B | -14% | +14% | 29% | 14.8× | 3.1% | +17.4% |
| Prosus PRX.AS | Netherlands | $83.9B | -3% | +45% | 3% | 10.1× | 55.8% | +13.8% |
| Adobe ADBE | United States | $93.1B | -5% | +12% | 36% | 8.9× | 0.9% | +13.1% |
| SNOW SNOW | United States | $97.3B | +81% | +32% | -22% | 108.4× | 41.3% | +51.2% |
| ServiceNow NOW | United States | $106B | +12% | +22% | 13% | 22.4× | 29.5% | +24.1% |
| Datadog DDOG | United States | $64.3B | -11% | +33% | 2% | 61.0× | n/a | n/a |
| AppLovin APP | United States | $131B | -16% | +29% | 78% | 20.0× | 28.2% | +30.4% |
| Autodesk ADSK | United States | $54.7B | +7% | +19% | 23% | 20.1× | 18.1% | +13.7% |
| Constellation Software CSU.TO | Canada | $53.3B | +37% | +17% | 16% | 19.7× | 11.2% | +25.0% |
| Roper Technologies ROP | United States | $47.2B | +39% | +9% | 28% | 19.7× | 12.7% | +10.2% |
| Salesforce CRM | United States | $176B | +18% | +11% | 22% | 14.6× | 13.7% | +14.3% |
| Dassault Systemes DSY.PA | France | $39.0B | +32% | 0% | 26% | 19.2× | 8.3% | +7.0% |
| Atlassian TEAM | United States | $38.7B | +5% | +26% | 4% | 28.7× | 44.7% | +25.8% |
| NBIS NBIS | United States | $35.2B | -8% | +461% | -49% | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| CrowdStrike CRWD | United States | $222B | +64% | +24% | -1% | 153.6× | 52.4% | +40.6% |
| Zscaler ZS | United States | $32.2B | +30% | +25% | -4% | 40.5× | 20.7% | +37.9% |
| Twilio TWLO | United States | $31.3B | 0% | +19% | 8% | 30.7× | 38.2% | +23.5% |
| Palo Alto Networks PANW | United States | $257B | +51% | +24% | 5% | 75.0× | n/a | n/a |
| Okta OKTA | United States | $29.5B | +101% | +11% | 8% | 41.3× | 39.2% | +28.4% |
Cadence Design Systems has 3 bonds outstanding with $2.50B face value. The agencies rate it A-; its bonds trade like A. Weighted yield 5.33%, a spread of 69 bp over government bonds.
Cadence Design Systems reported $8.20B of remaining performance obligations at 30 Sep 2026, up 17% from a year earlier and up 1% from the previous quarter. That is 1.3 years of trailing revenue already under contract. Book-to-bill last quarter: 1.06.