(Reuters) -Shares of Synopsys and Cadence Design Systems jumped on Thursday after the United States lifted export restrictions on chip design software to China, easing major uncertainty around access to the crucial market.
The two companies, along with Germany’s Siemens, said they were resuming availability of their electronic design automation (EDA) tools for Chinese customers.
De-escalating U.S.-Sino trade tensions come as a major relief for the EDA industry’s three biggest players with Cadence getting about 12% of annual revenue from China, while Synopsys relies on the country for about 16% of its sales.
Synopsys and Cadence rose 6.7% and 5.9%, respectively, in U.S. trading before the bell, and Siemens gained 0.9% in Frankfurt.
“This marks a distinct warming of relations and a small ceasefire in the chips war,” said Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown.
Washington has, across administrations, attempted to curtail China’s access to cutting-edge U.S. technology, seeking to thwart its AI development.
Against the backdrop of U.S. curbs, China’s semiconductor industry has benefited from subsidies for local production leading to a boom in design activity.
Synopsys had in May suspended its annual and quarterly forecasts just a day after issuing them, in response to the U.S. export restrictions on China.
The company did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on whether it would restore its outlook with the restrictions now being lifted.
The export restrictions, which were unveiled late in May, would only impact about a month’s revenue for Synopsys and Cadence in the current quarter, Mizuho analysts said.
Analysts had also warned that Synopsys’ $35 billion buyout of engineering software firm Ansys could possibly be delayed or blocked by Chinese regulators as a fallout of the export curbs.
Mizuho analysts said with the restrictions now lifted, they expect the “merger could close by the July 15 deadline, or at the very least, continues to progress toward completion in 2025.”
(Reporting by Medha Singh in Bengaluru and Arsheeya Bajwa; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee and Shailesh Kuber)
