Synopsys, Cadence Shares Drop 4% on The Information Report

Shares of Synopsys and Cadence Design Systems dropped as much as 4% on Tuesday after The Information reported that Anthropic has told investors that it is using its own Claude models for engineering and design work on its custom chips.

Anthropic’s engineers found that Claude cuts down the time it takes to design chips compared to their estimates of traditional workflows at large chip designers, the report said.

If AI labs such as Anthropic and OpenAI eventually decide to sell tools to help other companies to design chips, they would compete with Cadence and Synopsys, which develop electronic design automation software used to design most semiconductors and electronic systems.

By the close of trading, the companies’ shares pared back some losses. Cadence closed down 1.75%, while Synopsys closed the day flat. Shares of Synopsys are mostly flat this year while Cadence is up only 4%, versus 9% for the Nasdaq Composite.