  Electronic structures of a superconductor without inversion symmetry,
LaPdSi3, and its non-superconducting counterpart, LaPdGe3, have been calculated
employing the full-potential local-orbital method within the density functional
theory. The investigations were focused on analyses of densities of states at
the Fermi level in comparison with previous experimental heat capacity data and
an influence of the antisymmetric spin-orbit coupling on the band structures
and Fermi surfaces (FSs) being very similar for both considered here compounds.
Their FSs sheets originate from four bands and have a holelike character, but
exhibiting pronounced nesting features only for superconducting LaPdSi3. It may
explain a relatively strong electron-phonon coupling in the latter system and
its lack in non-superconducting LaPdGe3.
