Cadence Design Systems licenses software for electronic design automation (EDA), printed circuit board (PCB) design and system analysis, and sells access to emulation and prototyping capacity. Its public pages describe a licence model built on a licence server: Cadence products “require a license server for license authorization”, and “the licenses of all the Cadence products are managed by FlexLM license management solution.”[8] On top of that mechanism sit several commercial constructs: single-user licences for desktop PCB tools, floating licences served to a network, token and a la carte schemes for some tools, cloud deployment models, and capacity ordered in units of gates. This article maps those constructs and points to the deeper articles. It describes what Cadence’s own pages state, nothing more; a contract, quotation or order always controls.
Documents and what they cover
Cadence publishes licensing information in several places, and they differ in weight. The only agreement text this edition could read in full is a click-through Software License Agreement for design materials accessed through Cadence’s cloud orchestration and design management environment. It grants a temporary, personal, non-transferable, non-exclusive right of use, limits use to evaluation and demonstration, states the materials are licensed, not sold, and runs for 30 days unless Cadence specifies otherwise in writing.[1] It is an evaluation agreement, not the production contract.
Production purchases are governed by quotations and orders. The Cadence-hosted Future Facilities page shows the structure: where licences were selected from “Cadence’s System Pricebook” under a Cadence Product Quotation or Order, the terms that apply are the Software License and Maintenance Terms and Conditions for either time-based product licences (TBL) or 99-year product licences, together with the terms stated in the quotation.[6] Cadence publishes the TBL and 99-year terms as separate PDF documents, but those copies could not be retrieved for this edition, so this wiki does not summarise their clauses. Licence managers should obtain the version referenced by their own order.
The remaining sources are product pages, an FAQ and Cadence-authored technical articles. They are undated or carry blog dates, and they describe how licences behave in practice: how to install a licence file, how clients find the server, how many licences a tool run takes.
Editions and products
Cadence’s PCB tools are the best publicly documented editions. OrCAD X is available in three tiers, Standard, Professional and Professional Plus, each building on the last: Standard focuses on schematic design with basic PSpice simulation, Professional adds Live BOM, collaboration, automation, high-speed features and integrated signal and power integrity analysis, and Professional Plus adds advanced PSpice analysis, a circuit optimizer and MathWorks Simulink integration.[2] The OrCAD X and Allegro X article covers them in detail. Characterization tools such as Liberate are licensed by feature and product number, for example ALT110 (Liberate_Server) and ALT111 (Liberate_Client), with a token alternative, ALT910 (Liberate_Unified_Cell).[9] The 6SigmaDCX and 6SigmaET software suite is licensed under a separate EULA that Cadence hosts under the Future Facilities name.[6]
Metrics
The catalog records the following counting constructs, each tied to a Cadence document.
| Metric | What is counted | Source |
|---|---|---|
| OrCAD X single-user licence | One licence, installable on up to five computers, one active at a time | OrCAD X FAQ[2] |
| Floating licence served by a FlexLM licence server | Licences checked out from the server and returned on exit | Cadence blog[8] |
| Liberate server licence and client licence | One server licence per corner run; one client licence per thread | Cadence blog[9] |
| Liberate_Unified_Cell token licence | Tokens selected with the TOKENS keyword | Cadence blog[10] |
| Node-Locked Licence and Floating Licence (6Sigma) | One computer; one concurrent use per key | 6Sigma EULA[6] |
| Palladium and Protium Cloud gate capacity | Gates ordered in increments | Cadence page[4] |
| Cadence OnCloud token | Monthly token allotment | Cadence page[5] |
| Single user at a time (Design Materials) | One user at a time under the evaluation agreement | Software License Agreement[1] |
Counting and floors
Counting depends on the construct. For floating licences the server “determines the number of available licenses and distributes them from the specified license server until all the licenses for a given application are consumed”, and an application returns its licence when it closes.[8] For Liberate, a server licence “remains occupied till the characterization finishes”, the run then takes one client licence per thread, and Cadence states a floor: “a minimum of one Liberate server and ten Liberate client licenses.”[9] A la carte and token licences cannot be mixed in the same run.[10] Capacity products have ordering floors instead: Palladium Cloud is ordered in increments of 32 million gates up to 2 billion, and Protium Cloud in increments of 150 million up to 1.2 billion.[4]
The licence file itself is a control. The host ID in the file must match the licence server, and it “cannot be edited”; the install guide also says not to edit the FEATURE lines or the host ID in the SERVER line.[7] A FEATURE line is valid only between its start date and expiration date with a valid encryption code.[7]
Virtualization and partitioning
The documents reviewed contain no partitioning or virtual-machine rules for Cadence software comparable to those of database vendors. The licence is locked to a host ID of the licence server rather than to client hardware, and clients reach the server through environment variables or a client configuration utility.[10] The OrCAD X single-user licence is an exception in that it is counted by active device, not by installation.[2]
Cloud and bring your own licence
Cadence describes three cloud routes under its OnCloud brand. Under Cloud Passport “customers gain the contractual ability to place Cadence tools in their own public cloud environment”, and the customer’s teams are solely responsible for setting up and supporting that environment.[3] The Managed Cloud Service is a Cadence-managed environment built on AWS, Microsoft Azure or IBM Cloud, and Palladium and Protium Cloud provides pre-purchased gate capacity in a Cadence-contracted data center.[5][4] For OrCAD X, cloud floating licences and licence borrowing are stated as not yet supported.[2] The Cloud Passport and OnCloud article covers these in turn.
Programs
OrCAD X offers a 30-day free commercial trial and a 6-month free academic trial, both with full access to Professional Plus and no payment details.[2] OrCAD X premium support covers updates, OnCloud access and phone and case support.[2] The design-materials agreement is a 30-day evaluation licence without support.[1] Cadence also monitors usage: the cloud agreement allows it to collect usage and consumption data, including to track entitlements.[1]
Litigation
Cadence was the plaintiff in a copyright and trade secret case over place-and-route source code, summarised in Cadence Design Systems v. Avant!.
Out of scope
This article does not summarise the Cadence Software License and Maintenance Agreement templates for time-based and 99-year licences, remix and pooled licence terms, audit clauses of production agreements, price lists or the terms of products Cadence has acquired other than the 6Sigma suite. None of those documents could be retrieved from Cadence’s own domain for this edition. They are listed as gaps in the coverage notes for the vendor.