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Earnings Call: Q1 2020

Feb 19, 2020

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Synopsys earnings conference call for the first quarter of fiscal year 2020. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question- and- answer session, and instructions will be given at that time. We ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up so that we can accommodate. If you should require assistance during the call, please press star followed by zero. Today's call will last one hour. Five minutes prior to the end of the call, we will announce the amount of time remaining in the conference. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Lisa Ewbank, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Lisa Ewbank
VP of Investor Relations, Synopsys

Thank you, Lori. Good afternoon. Hosting the call today are Aart de Geus, Chairman and Co-CEO of Synopsys, and Trac Pham, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that during the course of this conference call, Synopsys will discuss forecasts, targets, and other forward-looking statements regarding the company and its financial results. While these statements represent our best current judgment about future results and performance as of today, our actual results and performance are subject to many risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we expect. In addition to any risks that we highlight during the call, important factors that may affect our future results are described in our most recent SEC reports and today's earnings press release. In addition, we will refer to non-GAAP financial measures during the discussion.

Reconciliations to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures and supplemental financial information can be found in the earnings press release, financial supplement, and 8-K that we released earlier today. All of these items, plus the most recent investor presentation, are available on our website at synopsys.com. In addition, the prepared remarks will be posted on the site at the conclusion of the call. With that, I'll turn the call over to Aart de Geus.

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

Good afternoon. Q1 was an excellent start to the year as we met or exceeded all of our guidance targets. Revenue was $834 million, with GAAP earnings per share of $0.67 and non-GAAP earnings above our target range at $1.01. In December, we communicated our fiscal 2020 guidance, high single-digit revenue growth, substantial ops margin expansion, mid-teens non-GAAP earnings per share growth, and more than $800 million in operating cash flow. We are reaffirming our guidance for the year. Trac will discuss the financials in more detail. Looking at the overall landscape, ongoing geopolitical tension and the recent coronavirus outbreak have generated heightened uncertainty around the world. Regarding the virus outbreak, our first priority has been the safety and health of our employees, customers, and partners. We continue to monitor the situation and support our China teams as they continue to drive business execution.

Undeterred by those challenges, electronics companies, ranging from traditional semiconductor and systems companies to new startups and hyperscalers, persist in designing ever more complex chips and devices with a high degree of market urgency. Driven by AI and machine learning, automotive, 5G, IoT, and cloud expansion, the proliferation of smart everything is and will be the central driver for years to come. As a result, robust demand for our solutions has continued in 2020. Our innovation and technologies spanning the spectrum from silicon to software are absolutely central to the ambitious products and systems being built. Let me share some product highlights from the quarter, starting with EDA. An important differentiator for Synopsys continues to be our leading position in enabling manufacturing process development.

With highly sophisticated simulation of new technologies, new transistors, and the structure needed for the most advanced fabs in the world, we not only assist our manufacturing partners, but we also lay the groundwork for our design tools to be tuned and ready well before these technologies go into production design. On top of that, over the last several years, Synopsys has pioneered a new approach called Fusion that literally fuses algorithms from different tools, resulting in faster and lower power chips in far less time. A showcase example of this is our Fusion Compiler product, introduced about a year ago. Within just a few months of its introduction, Fusion Compiler revealed itself as a revolutionary product. It is winning head-to-head benchmarks with consistently superior performance, power, and area results across a broad set of applications.

Results thus far are ahead of our initial plan, with many customer engagements progressing very well, from exploring the tool to usage on a few live design blocks, to production rollout. In Q1, we built upon several breakthrough competitive wins, ranging from the largest global communications processing graphics firms to high-impact cloud hyperscalers to multiple influential system houses. For example, AMD chose Fusion Compiler for its full-flow digital design implementation of its next-generation processors. Fusion Compiler is displacing the competition at a large hyperscaler for a next-generation Arm core-based graphics design at 5 nm and below. We achieved a significant win at a large multinational consumer electronics company on next-gen Arm CPU core. We're expanding displacement and deployment at a leading mobile company for critical 5G design at 5 and 4 nm.

A leading U.S. semiconductor company is deploying Fusion Compiler on all new graphics designs, taking advantage of better runtime and quality of results. We displaced the competition for Arm core designs at a leading automotive semiconductor company, and we expanded proliferation at a large U.S. semiconductor leader with a new win in wireless design. While still relatively early in our multi-year product cycle, these important wins represent significant momentum and usage share gains, which will flow into revenue over time. The Fusion concept is very powerful and is getting great results across Synopsys as our innovation continues at a rapid pace. Stay tuned for some exciting new product announcements as we approach our March Silicon Valley user group event. Let me now turn to custom design, a product area that underwent a multi-year innovation push and has seen excellent progress over the last 18 months.

Not only are we now highly competitive for advanced nodes, we continue to see a growing number of displacements and full flow engagements. Our expansion is driven by fresh innovations focused on maximizing designer productivity. Customers are experiencing this benefit, and we saw excellent growth in revenue from our Custom Compiler product again this quarter. For example, a high-impact global systems company expanded its full flow usage in Q1, proliferating after a significant competitive displacement. Additional Custom Compiler wins include a leading silicon photonics developer and a CMOS image sensor company. Let me now move to our Verification Continuum platform, where we maintain our number one market share position. In verification software, we gained share in Q1 at a large global hyperscaler, driven by their growing needs for verification capacity across our platform.

Meanwhile, demand for hardware-based verification is high across the board, driven by continued complexity growth in new designs. The speed and capacity of our solutions are particularly well-suited whenever software bring-up is involved. While a strong Q1 last year makes for a tough year-over-year hardware comparison, we continue to gain momentum with both new and existing customers. In Q1, we gained nine new logos and 34 repeat orders, including very high-profile systems and semiconductor companies. NEC, for example, chose our ZeBu emulation system over the incumbent for their high-performance compute solutions due to our superior performance, very fast bring-up time, and unique debug visibility. In Q1, we also announced the acquisition of the DINI Group, which further expands our HAPS FPGA-based prototyping portfolio. Now to IP, which continues to deliver strong results.

As the number one provider of interface, embedded memory, analog, and foundry-specific IP, we provide the industry's broadest portfolio covering all key markets, AI, automotive, cloud, IoT, and 5G mobile. Our demonstrated strength in high-performance cloud computing applications is evident in several areas. We've already achieved more than 60 design wins in PCI Express 5.0. Our new die-to-die 56 and 112 DX30 continues to gain market traction. We also had a significant IP portfolio win with a major China e-commerce company for micro server applications. Our leadership position in USB led to multiple tier 1 processor semiconductor companies adopting our newest generation USB 4.0 IP in a leading 5-nm process. We're also seeing unmatched leadership and momentum in automotive, where our automotive-grade IP is being used by 10 of the top 11 semiconductor suppliers to that industry.

One notable example is Qualcomm, which selected our automotive IP portfolio, including interface, ARC processors, and embedded test and repair solutions for their new Snapdragon Ride platform for autonomous driving. Finally, we continue to expand our IP portfolio with the acquisition of technologies from eSilicon and INVECAS, the latter closing just last week. Along with valuable technology, these acquisitions also enable us to further scale our IP development to meet high customer demand across growing markets. Now to software integrity, the tools that test software code for security, vulnerabilities, and quality issues.

We delivered a solid beginning to the year with business levels up more than 30% over the same period last year. We saw continued progress in driving multi-year, multi-million dollar agreements, booking several across multiple verticals. As I mentioned in December, we've entered phase II of our strategy, scaling into the $500 million- $1 billion revenue space.

To accomplish this, we're focused on four areas. One, expanding our cloud-based Polaris Software Integrity Platform through additional product integrations. Two, scaling consulting engagements to fully leverage a key differentiator in the software and DevOps market. Three, refining our channel to better serve large enterprise customers, key market verticals, and new regional business. Four, evolving our management team for the complexity and size of a larger business. We're moving fast on all of these. Just last week, we announced the expansion of the Polaris platform, bringing static testing and software composition analysis directly to the developer's desktop. This first-of-its-kind solution enables developers to seamlessly find and fix security weaknesses in proprietary code and known vulnerabilities in open source code, all within their desktop development environment.

We also added to the team and products from Tinfoil Security, broadening our product offerings for dynamic application security testing for DAST, and adding API scanning capability. Our scaling efforts in the field are also progressing well as we've ramped up hiring activity and are excited about the sales energy in the organization. A good example of the power of the combination of products and consulting is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. A relationship that began with a small initial service engagement to help them respond to a security breach has grown to include both product purchases and now additional services to help them proliferate our solutions.

We're also moving fast to scale our leadership and management team to the next level. We have launched an external search for a new general manager to lead the organization into the $500 million-$1 billion level.

While these efforts will flow into revenue over time, we're encouraged by the positive start. There's a tremendous opportunity in this space, and we're well-positioned to enable companies to improve the security and quality of their software with a combination of high-value products, a great new platform, and enabling consulting services. In closing, Q1 was a very good start to the year. We delivered strong financial results and are reaffirming our outlook for fiscal 2020. Even with some caution around global markets, electronics companies continue to invest in critical chip and system designs, as well as immense amounts of sophisticated software. Our innovation engine is prolific, and this quarter we will be introducing a number of exciting new products and differentiating capabilities. We are committed and on track towards our mid and long-term growth and margin expansion targets.

Finally, let me thank our customers for their business and our employees for their dedication and hard work in delivering continued strong results. Trac will now highlight the financial perspective.

Trac Pham
CFO, Synopsys

Thanks, Aart. Good afternoon, everyone. We delivered a strong start to the year, meeting or exceeding our guidance targets for the quarter, and we are on pace for our full-year plan. We remain relentlessly focused on execution, generating revenue for the quarter at the high end of our target range, and non-GAAP earnings per share well above the range. We produced another quarter of strong collections, which contributed to positive cash flow in a quarter that is typically an outflow due to variable compensation payouts, and we launched a $100 million share repurchase.

Our increasingly diverse customer base and strong product portfolio, combined with our nearly 90% recurring revenue model, position us for success in periods of high demand as well as those of greater uncertainty. Multiple factors, including the Entity List export restrictions and broader trade tensions, as well as the coronavirus situation, have added to market volatility.

Based on our current view and the strength of our business, we are confident in our ability to manage through this uncertainty, and we are reiterating our guidance for the year. I'll now review our first quarter results. All comparisons are year-over-year, unless otherwise stated. We generated total revenue of $834 million. Semiconductor and System Design segment revenue was $749 million, with strong growth in IP and a tough hardware comparison over a strong Q1 of last year. Excluding hardware and the impact of Entity List trade restrictions, EDA software results remain within our long-term target range of mid to high single digits.

Software Integrity segment revenue was $86 million, 10% of total, and business levels for the quarter increased more than 30%. Because of our largely time-based model, the associated revenue will be recognized over the life of the contracts. Moving on to expenses.

Total GAAP costs and expenses were $747 million, which includes approximately $9 million in restructuring costs. Total non-GAAP costs and expenses were $647 million, resulting in a non-GAAP operating margin of 22.4%. Our Q1 margin reflects revenue profile this year, as well as a change in the timing of general salary increases now in Q1. We are on track to generate approximately 200 basis points of op margin expansion for the year. Adjusted operating margin for semiconductor and system design was 23.9%, and software integrity was 9.4%. Finally, GAAP earnings per share were $0.67, and non-GAAP earnings per share were $1.01. Turning to cash, we generated $10 million in operating cash flow. Including the $100 million Q1 ASR, we've repurchased $1.9 billion of our stock since 2015, or approximately 80% of our free cash flow returned to shareholders over that period.

We ended the quarter with a cash balance of $700 million and total debt of $331 million. A couple of comments before I move on to our targets. As I've noted, we delivered a strong start to the year, and we are reiterating our full-year guidance. We are maintaining our first half, second half revenue split of roughly 45%/55%, which reflects forecasted timing of IP and hardware deliveries, as well as general prudence given the uncertainty around the unfolding coronavirus situation.

For fiscal 2020, we are targeting revenue of $3.6 billion-$3.65 billion, total GAAP costs and expenses between $2.95 and $3 billion, total non-GAAP costs and expenses between $2.63 and $2.66 billion, resulting in a non-GAAP operating margin of approximately 27%, GAAP earnings of $3.68-$3.87 per share, non-GAAP earnings of $5.18-$5.25 per share, cash flow from operations of $800 million-$825 million, and capital expenditures of approximately $180 million. We expect capital expenditures to decline in 2021. Now to the targets for the second quarter. Revenue between $820 and $850 million, total GAAP costs and expenses between $724 and $758 million, total non-GAAP costs and expenses between $645 and $665 million, GAAP earnings of $0.49-$0.62 per share, and non-GAAP earnings of $0.96-$1.01 per share. In conclusion, our focused execution enabled us to again deliver strong results, meeting or exceeding our targets.

With a very good start in Q1, we are reaffirming the full- year guidance provided in December. We are also tracking well to our goals of high- 20s operating margin by 2021 and profitability in a 30% range longer term as we move towards our next milestone of $4 billion of revenue. We remain committed to a balanced capital allocation strategy consisting of investing in the business for growth while continuing to return capital to shareholders as we focus on driving sustainable long-term shareholder value. With that, I'll turn it over to the operator for questions.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press one then zero on your telephone keypad. You may withdraw your question at any time by repeating the one zero command. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up the handset before pressing the numbers. Once again, if you have a question, you may press one then zero at this time. Before we begin the Q&A session, I would like to ask everyone to please limit yourself to two questions to allow us to accommodate all participants. If you do have additional questions, please re-enter the queue and we'll take as many as time permits. Our first question from the line of Rich Valera with Needham & Company. Please go ahead.

Rich Valera
Analyst, Needham & Company

Thank you. Our question on Software Integrity. You mentioned you had very good business levels. I think you said 30% increase in business levels, but it looked like revenue decelerated pretty sharply in the business. Just wanted to understand if business levels refer to bookings, and why the deceleration in revenue and what might drive that to re-accelerate.

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

You're correct. Business levels refer to bookings, and you may recall that last quarter we reported that 2019 had been relatively weak in terms of bookings. What you saw is the result of that plus whatever was transacted during the quarter. Our objective, obviously, is to now build back to a higher level, and we will actively pursue that.

Rich Valera
Analyst, Needham & Company

Any thoughts or commentary on when that business might re-accelerate into the double digits routines?

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

Well, we just finished what we thought was a strong quarter, so it's easier said than done to just keep doing that. That's obviously the objective, right? Is to invest in some of the channel areas specifically that I think can be more balanced for the opportunity space and make sure that we move fast on the deployment of the Polaris platform and the integration of new capabilities. Those are sort of some of the cornerstones to the success of the long-term business.

Trac Pham
CFO, Synopsys

Just keep in mind that in December, we highlight the long-term growth for this business on the multi-year period is 15%-20%, and we are committed to that, and we should be able to grow at least with the market or faster.

Rich Valera
Analyst, Needham & Company

Got it. Just a quick follow-up to that. Aart, you've talked about the sales force realignment, and it sounds like some new personnel being brought in. Where do you think that both that sales force is in terms of structure and personnel relative to where you want it to be? Is there more you need to bring in? Or you feel like you've got pretty much the sort of the headcount you need to drive the business forward?

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

Well, we're now in active hiring. We have hired a number of people. It's both a combination of tuning, meaning putting it in the right organization, and simultaneously filling the holes as we see opportunities, and there are plenty of opportunities. No, we're far from done, but we have a good start. Actually, some of the changes that we made in 2019 appear to have generated quite a bit of energy on the part of the sales force that feels that they have a better shot this year than the last year.

Rich Valera
Analyst, Needham & Company

That's great.

Trac Pham
CFO, Synopsys

Let me also reiterate that as part of our plan, we did contemplate the additional hirings in that business. We'll continue to invest that business as it scales, and as we said in December, in which we're still on track towards maintaining margins relatively flat year-over-year. All the commentary that we described is consistent with how we're managing the business.

Rich Valera
Analyst, Needham & Company

Got it. Yes. The bookings sound encouraging. Look forward to seeing the progress there. Thank you.

Trac Pham
CFO, Synopsys

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question from the line of Joe Vruwink with Baird. Your line is open.

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

That's one of the easier questions. It sounds like we have no connection operator.

Operator

Let me check. If Joe Vruwink, your line is open? Oh, okay. He may pop back into the queue here momentarily. We'll go to our next person, Mitch Steves with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Mitch Steves
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. The first one I kind of wanted to point to is for Trac. Given the coronavirus and some of the other macro concerns, my question is, since you guys beat pretty nicely in the first quarter, would you have raised the full year assuming that there was no macro change? Or do you believe that it's already encapsulated in your full-year guide?

Trac Pham
CFO, Synopsys

It's factored into our guide, and I would say that it's not a meaningful impact to the year. We did get a very strong start of the year, so after 90 days, we feel very good about the outlook for the business on a full-year basis. As we typically do describe, after one quarter, it's a good start and it gives us good progress to the year, but there's still a lot of business left to book.

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

Yeah, if I may add to that, our business is actually mostly multi-year, and so we have actually a fairly high degree of stability in our business towards events like this. At the same time, it is clear that some of the customers or the customer's customers are impacted because they may not be able to ship products. It remains to be seen if that makes its way all the way to us. Mostly we're quite isolated or insulated, I should say, from these type of problems.

Mitch Steves
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Okay, got you. My second one, just on the core EDA business. You guys have talked about mid to high single-digit growth. If I look at this, it looks like for the last about six quarters now, it's been below about 4%. I guess why is the time-based revenue flat year-over-year if EDA software is still growing mid to high single? Is that just going to accelerate in the back half? If so, I'm trying to understand why that would be the case.

Trac Pham
CFO, Synopsys

Mitch, I would separate that question to two parts. The first part is, keep in mind that emulation does show up in the EDA line. From a product group perspective, we've continued to grow very nicely in hardware, and that tends to be lumpy quarter-to-quarter, but it's continued growth on a multi-year basis. That will affect the comparison. The second part, which you're trying to connect to, is the license type that are time-based. Remember that in last year, we did transition to 606, and the mix that you're going to see in the time-based versus the upfront line is affected by that revenue transition. As we described, the numbers and the comparisons for EDA is colored by the timing of hardware this year, as well as the Entity List that was affecting both the EDA and IP line.

We still feel very comfortable about our long-term and our model to drive in the mid to high single digits.

Mitch Steves
Analyst, RBC Capital Markets

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Go back to Joe Vruwink's line. He is with Baird. Please go ahead.

Joe Vruwink
Analyst, Baird

Can you hear me now?

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

We can.

Operator

Yeah.

Joe Vruwink
Analyst, Baird

Okay, there we go. I wanted to revisit the last question just regarding EDA performance. I think, obviously appreciating the market uncertainty, but your customers seem to have a more optimistic view on their R&D activity in 2020, and I would argue 2021. If that acceleration does come through, is there any reason why your EDA business wouldn't participate in that trend?

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

No, there's no reason it would not participate because as I think somewhat mentioned in the preamble, we see customers be quite aggressive in what they're designing. Fundamentally, we are in a good market, and therefore participation, be it in EDA or IP in that, is absolutely a part of where we should do well. I think we're cautious just because there's been so many changes in the global market that have had some impact. As we gave out the numbers, we encompassed the fact that we thought there would be no change to the Entity List. Those are the type of things that we're dealing with for the year. Fundamentally, actually, I think that we are in a long-term good market, leaving alone massive GDP fluctuation or anything like that. The technology needs are high for us, and that's very encouraging.

Joe Vruwink
Analyst, Baird

If I can follow up on Software Integrity, I'm maybe trying to reconcile the comments a quarter ago that orders were a bit softer to what seems really like a snapback to this 30% type number. Is that just the actions you outlined a quarter ago and you started out the call talking about, are those beginning to bear fruit already or are there some other things going on?

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

Partially the answer is definitely bear fruit because we have invested and made quite a number of changes, certainly in the latter part of 2019. At the same time, I don't want to set the expectation that over 30% is the norm for every quarter. That's not what we're guiding towards. The fact is, this was a very good quarter from an orders point- of- view, that will manifest itself in revenue over time. I think we have a lot of opportunities to evolve the business to be capable of rising above the half billion mark, you're sort of in a different league of management. Many of the investments that we're making are really all aimed at the skill of scaling to that next level.

Joe Vruwink
Analyst, Baird

Great. Thank you very much.

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

You're welcome.

Operator

Our next question from the line of Jackson Ader with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Jackson Ader
Analyst, JPMorgan

Great. Thanks for taking my questions, guys. The first one is on hardware. Coming out of last year, you mentioned that some large hardware deals slipped. I'm not sure if we heard an update on what the expectations are for the timing and delivery of those now in 2020.

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

Well, we typically don't give a specific timing of shipments because some people try to understand which customer did what to whom. The bottom line is, one of the reasons that we think we have a strong year overall is that hardware will be strong, and actually the demand continues in that direction. It is also true that the delivery is lumpy, and that in itself is visible somewhat in the first half, second half of the year.

Jackson Ader
Analyst, JPMorgan

Okay. I think I can follow the breadcrumbs there. Just to follow up on the Fusion wins, the competitive wins, specifically where you mentioned you were displacing a competitor. Can you just give us a sense, either a mix or just identify some of the wins, whether these were brand-new customers to Synopsys or whether they were re-winning or winning back a customer that had maybe shifted away in the past?

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

The answer is yes, and yes, meaning that they fall in all categories. In the past, it has been relatively rare that there would be brand-new customers because the semiconductor industry was relatively stable and actually partially consolidating. That has changed substantially in two ways. One is a number of the hyperscalers are becoming strongly interested in doing chip design. Secondly, there's a plethora of IP companies that are doing extremely advanced design on an extremely aggressive timescale. For those, the utilization of our tools is just imperative to be able to succeed. We have opportunities in all fronts, and the bottom line is we have to continue to push hard on the technology, but right now it's very strong.

Jackson Ader
Analyst, JPMorgan

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

You're welcome.

Operator

We'll go to Adam Gonzalez with Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead.

Adam Gonzalez
Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Hi, guys. Yeah, thanks for taking my question. First, I just wanted to ask about the China market, and can you just discuss trends there, excluding Huawei, and how you see that market moving forward? Then, if you see any potential impact from the proposed changes to the regulatory outlook, whether that's changes to the de minimis rule or the Foreign Direct Product Rule? Thanks.

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

Well, if you take away the Entity List, then I would say no change, meaning that China continues to be very active, moving forward at a rapid pace, adopting new technologies, and our business is strong. Regarding the Entity List, we had assumed, and somewhat predicted that there would be no radical change in the near future. So far, that has turned out to be true, but as we all know, things can happen in unexpected ways depending on how the tensions between the countries evolve. We do not expect that any part of the specific rules would have major impact on changes in our business, because bottom line is to the Entity List, we're not shipping. That is sort of an all-or-nothing type of situation already today.

Adam Gonzalez
Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Great. Trac, just wanted to follow up on the second half revenue outlook. Can you maybe give a little more detail about what your expectations are for a split between Q3 and Q4? Then I think on the prior call for the SIG business, you had outlined that you expect to ramp up spending this year such that margins would stay relatively flat throughout the year. Is that still the goal? Thanks.

Trac Pham
CFO, Synopsys

Yes, that's still the goal. Let me start with the first question, this first half, second half. We do expect Q4 to be directionally the largest quarter for revenues and EPS, and that's consistent with the guidance. With regards to SIG, we do expect the hiring ramp to continue throughout the year, and that's reflected in the 200 basis point improvement. Quarter- to- quarter, it can get a little noisy, but generally flattish with last year.

Adam Gonzalez
Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Great. Thank you.

Operator

We'll go next to John Pitzer with Credit Suisse. Your line is open.

John Pitzer
Analyst, Credit Suisse

Good afternoon, guys. Thanks for letting me ask a question. My first question, the large North American CPU guys that you've had historically a pretty good position seems to be going through kind of a fundamental change in their design philosophy over the next couple of years, where they're going to move away from doing everything their own IP to maybe using some more off-the-shelf block IPs within their design. I'm curious, what are the trends or the opportunities that that might create for you in the EDA space?

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

John, my apologies, we sort of understood every second word, we sort of made out the words IP and the word trend, I think. I apologize. Is it possible to try to summarize just sort of three or four words that are most interest to you and I'll try to fabricate a response to that.

John Pitzer
Analyst, Credit Suisse

Is this any better?

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

Yeah. There's sort of this warbling sound as if you were underwater, so.

John Pitzer
Analyst, Credit Suisse

I apologize. I'm on a cell phone. Is this any better or not?

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

Marginally so. Did I get the word IP correctly?

John Pitzer
Analyst, Credit Suisse

Yeah. The question is that the large North American CPU guy is moving to kind of a different design philosophy methodology, where they're going to be using less of their own kind of internal IP design and using more off-the-shelf blocks. I'm kind of curious as to what that means for you or the EDA space.

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

I think I understand the question. I'll try to re-ask it a little bit, which is essentially of the North American CPU guys, are they changing their design methodology to use more reusable IP? I want to broaden the question slightly because there are not that many North American CPU guys, and it's not appropriate for me to answer in a fashion that recognizes the customers. What I can say in general is, there's no question that around CPU design, and I'll include in that GPU and all the views that are specialized for AI, the design methodology is definitely evolving. There's certainly some people that continue the old way to massively optimize for the last gigahertz. For a majority, there's definitely a drift towards applications that use much more data, so that tend to be more machine learning oriented.

With that comes architectures that are very much focused on getting data in and off chip. That in itself brings about a natural increase of potentially reusable IP. Yes, I think the quality of the IP, the advanced nature, meaning the advanced nodes that our IP is available today, and the close collaboration we have with all of these customers has made it possible that they now accounting for design methodologies that use substantially more IP than they did in the past. We expect that to continue, and we also expect to continue that the IP will become more complex because with the smaller nodes, it really takes a lot of effort to make them work very well. It is now absolutely a distinguishing capability of the company.

Essentially what I'm trying to express to you is the IP business is difficult, but it is a great business for us to be in because it will continue to grow, it will continue to be demanding, and therefore, a good area for us to be in. We have long-term relationships with these customers where they acquire more and more pieces from us.

John Pitzer
Analyst, Credit Suisse

That's helpful. As my follow-up, Trac, you said there was no impact from the coronavirus on the full fiscal year, and that's understandable. Is there any cushion that you are embedding in the current quarter guidance? To the extent that Software Integrity is not a part of the op margin expansion story this year, how do we think about that business going into 2021, and kind of at what revenue level would you expect there to be a significant cushion in op margin in that business?

Trac Pham
CFO, Synopsys

The first question is related to Q2. My comment on the coronavirus to the numbers is consistent with Q2 in the full- year. It's not meaningful. This is our best outlook for the year, and I think it's pretty consistent with how we've been planning the year. With regards to SIG margins, we should be improving margins in FY 2021, and that's going to be a combination of us growing that business and continuing to scale it up and be more productive with the investments.

John Pitzer
Analyst, Credit Suisse

Thank you.

Trac Pham
CFO, Synopsys

Okay.

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

Thank you, John.

Operator

Our next question from the line of Jay Vleeschhouwer with Griffin Securities. Please go ahead.

Jay Vleeschhouwer
Analyst, Griffin Securities

Yeah. Thank you. Good evening. Aart, for you first. In your answer just now to a question regarding the evolution of design methodologies, you put it largely in the context of the role or adoption of IP. Could you also speak to that in terms of core EDA, in terms of how customers are differentiating themselves vis-a-vis design process and the employment of the tools? I'm sure this has been the case since the primordial days of EDA three decades ago. When you look at the multiple applications and needs that you talk about, in what way do you think core EDA design flows, processes, methodologies are evolving or need to evolve for customers to continue to distinguish themselves aside from their incorporation of standard IP?

For you, Trac, with regard to IP, in fiscal 2019, according to the 10-K, there was a $235 million positive impact from upfront IP revenue. Although total IP revenues increased by just over $100 million. How are you thinking about any of those wonderful ASC 606 mechanics in 2020 with regard to the tough comp you have on IP up-front revenue versus perhaps a somewhat easier comp on IP subs revenue?

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

Okay, let me start. Of course, your question can lead to a half an hour dissertation, which I won't do. The first thing to start with is that there's still a continuation of adoption of extremely advanced nodes. With that comes a nonstop demand for all of our tools, all the ones reaching deep into the physics, and certainly all the physical design tools to be up to speed with these nodes. By the way, their development is less clearly defined in time, meaning that a new node comes out and then within three months, there's another version of that node and another three months, another version. There's constant adaptation as people are really squeezing out the max.

In parallel to that, maybe less relevant, but still worthwhile to note, is that some of the older nodes are also being put more to use as people figure out that with the new tools, they can squeeze out more value out of those nodes, and not all the products need the most advanced. Having said that, on the advanced capabilities, if there are two or three trends I could highlight for the tools, one is this notion that the capacity of the tools needs to continue to increase because on Moore's Law, the one factor that really has not slowed down is the notion of increased density. Still more transistors per chip, that adds a lot of value for what you can do. In order to do that, we need to make sure that our tools interact well with each other.

The notion of Fusion is really profound because it tends to have every tool understand somewhat what the other tools will do and essentially have better team plays, so to speak. What comes on top of that is that now the application of AI is absolutely deeply anchored already in our business, and we have capabilities in every one of our tools that are impacted by improvements through AI and increasingly, you'll see capabilities between the tools. The last comment I'll make is in the verification space, where a trend that we had diagnosed early on continues at high speed, which is with the strengthening of the chips and the combinations of chips, and I'm looking here at things that are assembled in a 3D fashion of multiple chips talking to each other, such as processors and memories, and maybe sensors.

The importance of being able to verify both the hardware and the software at the same time continues to grow because whichever is the slowest or the worst offering quality will determine when something goes to market. That is the area where advanced simulation techniques, emulation, prototyping play in. Those are sort of the forces that govern what we do, and I can bet that by next week, there will be yet another demand for something to keep going because there's no deceleration in sight.

Trac Pham
CFO, Synopsys

Jay, your question regarding IP, let me start by saying that we're very positive about our IP business. This is, as we describe, a low double-digit growth business and everything we're seeing in the marketplace and our booking continue to reflect that outlook. That said, the 606 transition does introduce more variability to the numbers on a quarterly basis, but on a full-year basis and on a multi-year basis, this is a very good growth business for us as reflected in the guidance for the full- year.

Jay Vleeschhouwer
Analyst, Griffin Securities

Trac, could you update us on your backlog number?

Trac Pham
CFO, Synopsys

Well, I know you're going to read our Q that's coming out shortly, you'll see that the backlog is pretty steady at $4.4 and directionally up versus last quarter. Within that, the run rate of the business that we book was actually very positive.

Jay Vleeschhouwer
Analyst, Griffin Securities

Okay, thank you.

Trac Pham
CFO, Synopsys

You're welcome.

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

Thank you, Jay.

Operator

Our next question from the line of Jason Celino with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Jason Celino
Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. The acquisition of Tinfoil fills a nice hole in the dynamic testing side for your SIG portfolio. Can you talk about how that acquisition came about and maybe any other small holes your current offering has?

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

It is a very nice acquisition. In these new markets, everybody knows everybody. The question is always, are there some acquisitions that are both timely, that are economically reasonable, and where we can integrate rapidly in a broader solution? Of course, we have experience in this, in the EDA business for many really decades. There's some similarity in that. What was particularly intriguing is that Tinfoil fits so nicely in the Polaris platform. Now, of course, we have to do the integration, but this is exactly the type of capabilities that we'd love to have there because it makes the platform more useful, more versatile for our customers as they adopt it. It was designed to make these type of integrations possible and not too costly.

If I add to that the fact that Tinfoil is truly a remarkable high-quality company with some stunning individuals in terms of their ability to look at the future. By the way, they're local, so it makes it easier to integrate. So far it looks really promising.

Jason Celino
Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets

Okay. Similar topic, the acquisition of the IP assets over the last few months, how should we think about those as far as complementary to the growth opportunity in IP or kind of margin expansion opportunity in IP?

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

Very good question. Our IP business is really two components. One is to continually drive both the breadth, but I would say just as much the depth of what we do in IP. Depth would be the new technologies, new versions of a technology, et cetera. The other part is that actually IP does require quite a bit of work. They're very often statement of works on delivering IP that fits exactly the needs of a customer, so maybe some small variations or some tuning for a specific technology. Continuing to grow our workforce that can do this is just part of continuing to scale it overall. In both the cases of INVECAS and eSilicon, it was a combination of some technologies, but most importantly, also a workforce that was very well suited for the type of needs that we have.

We see it as essentially just another way of continuing to broaden and grow our business.

Jason Celino
Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets

Great. Thank you for the color.

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

You're welcome.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you have additional questions, you may press one, then zero at this time. We'll go next to Krish Sankar with Cowen and Company. The line is open.

Krish Sankar
Analyst, Cowen and Company

Yeah. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I have two of them. First one for Aart. Aart, if you look at it like high performance computing over the last several years has swung from being centralized cloud, and now it's more distributed towards the edge. I'm kind of curious, how does this change the EDA landscape, if at all? Do the requirements for EDA change at the edge? I'm just curious on that, and then I have a follow-up for Trac.

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

Well, most of the super high-performance computing is reasonably centralized. It is true that a number of the edge application, if you call a car an edge, there's a lot of computation that's going into that. I would say in general, the difference of design is not that marked unless you have two things that change. One is the need for low power, i.e., battery operated type things. There you have the never-ending challenge of how much performance can you squeeze out without draining the battery in no time. That's not a new problem. It really started to come up when mobility came up in early 2000s. The other thing is that in a number of edge applications now, these computational devices can be used in machines that can actually be lethal.

A car is definitely potentially lethal, but so could be a robot or so. With that comes a whole set of other rules that one have to serve in the design of the chips, such as having the capability for a chip to diagnose itself as faulty, and in some cases, to diagnose itself and at least temporarily repair itself by having, for example, duplication of some capabilities. Now, it took us a while to catch up on all those rules because many of those rules are very old. They come from the automotive industry. Now, and I think we highlighted maybe in the script on automotive, Synopsys is really well on top of this, and so much so that we now participate in the consortiums where the next set of rules are being developed and pioneered.

Those are sort of the differences, but for the rest, it's like, it's never good enough, it's never fast enough, it's never low power enough. That continues, and while these sound like negative words, they're music to our ears. There's a lot more opportunity for us.

Krish Sankar
Analyst, Cowen and Company

Got it. That's very helpful, Aart. A quick follow-up for Trac. It looks like your fiscal 2020 revenue guide is largely unaffected because of the virus. I understand the stability of your revenue stream, I would have thought that there would have been some impact on the hardware emulation business, given that's a little more variable. Kind of curious, are you not seeing any of that impact in hardware emulation?

Trac Pham
CFO, Synopsys

Our guidance reflects the best information we have right now, and the demand from our customers continues to be very strong. I think part of it is it's going to be the variability it's going to be mostly on the timing of it, but that's contemplated in the guidance. As far as growth goes, keep in mind, every year we look at the year and we say that it's going to be hard to grow off of a record year, which is what we had in 2019. We feel very good about where we are and the pipeline that we've got in place.

Krish Sankar
Analyst, Cowen and Company

Thanks, Trac.

Trac Pham
CFO, Synopsys

You're welcome.

Operator

We have a question from the line of Joshua Tilton with Berenberg Capital Markets. The line is open.

Joshua Tilton
Analyst, Berenberg Capital Markets

Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. First on Software Integrity, just how many months are left on the total Polaris rollout? What key functionality remains to be integrated, and should we expect a step up in margins once the platform is fully rolled out?

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

Yeah. It may be a strange answer, but that rollout will continue hopefully for a long, long time, meaning many years. The reason being that the basic capabilities of Polaris as a platform are there. Now the question is how well do we integrate multiple applications? The power of a platform is precisely because it handles multiple applications in a way that makes life much easier for the user instead of having to deal with different products that may have different interfaces, data representations, et cetera. What is encouraging is that we now have already multiple capabilities on there, and you may realize that I mentioned that the Tinfoil Security acquisition is slated to be integrated next. That's a good way to think about it. Hopefully, we can do many more things. Now, the platform itself will continue to evolve. They all do.

It's hard for me to say what's the life cycle for a platform in this area, which is still new to us. If you look at sort of EDA, our platforms typically have lasted somewhere between 10 to 15 years.

Trac Pham
CFO, Synopsys

That was helpful to drive margin expansion over time as we ramp up on the platform. It's going to come across from a variety of things, both revenue growth, operating efficiencies, and then getting the benefit of the platform.

Joshua Tilton
Analyst, Berenberg Capital Markets

Thanks. That was helpful. Then just following up on Fusion Compiler, has it been going up head-to-head specifically against Cadence's full digital flow? If so, how have the win rates been there?

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

Well, we really have mostly one competitor in that area, and it's a very worthy competitor. Yes, we compete all the time against Cadence. Let me just leave it at the fact that I think right now we have a very, very strong capability.

Joshua Tilton
Analyst, Berenberg Capital Markets

Thank you very much.

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

You're welcome.

Operator

I'll turn it back over to our speakers.

Aart de Geus
Chairman and Co-CEO, Synopsys

Well, with that, thank you for all the questions. Again, thank you for your support. We had a strong quarter. We have a whole rest of the year to go, as you know, and we look forward to talk to you again in a quarter. Be aware that for some of you, we're also available later on after the call.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this will conclude our teleconference for today. We thank you for your participation and for using AT&T conferencing service. You may now disconnect.