Accounts Receivable and Allowances for Doubtful Accounts (Details Textual)	Dec. 31, 2011 Customer	Jan. 01, 2011 Customer
Accounts Receivable and Allowances for Doubtful Accounts (Textual) [Abstract]
Number of customers accounted for percentage of Cadence's total receivables, net	0	1
Percent of Receivables and Installment Contract Receivables Attributable to Single Customer	10.00%	19.00%
Percentage of Company's total Receivables, net attributable to the ten customers with largest balance	45.00%	50.00%

Percentage of company's receivables net and installment contract receivables net attributable to ten customers with largest balance.

No definition available.

Name:	cdns_PercentageOfCompanysReceivablesNetAndInstallmentContractReceivablesNetAttributableToTenCustomersWithLargestBalance
Namespace Prefix:	cdns_
Data Type:	num:percentItemType
Balance Type:	na
Period Type:	instant