IP Subsystems Are Nothing New

By _Arteris Connected Blog

April 29, 2011

I’ve been hearing the term “IP subsystem” lately, and it seems to be the latest newfangled buzz word in the SoC semiconductor and IP industry, second only to “virtualization.” Much of the context for this growing interest in IP subsystems has been inspired from the work of Rich Wawrzyniak in his Semico Research report, “IP Somap2430 has iva2 ip subsytemubsystems: The Next IP Market Paradigm – October 2010.”

Rich was kind enough to send me the table of contents and an extract of the executive summary of this report, and I will say that I agree with the conclusion: Instead of integrating discrete IP blocks, “SoC designers are now looking to move up a layer of abstraction to design with system-level functionality to reduce the effort and cost associated with complex SoC designs today.”

And Rich also states that, “the concept of an IP subsystem is not a new one.”

However, I am confused about why people think this is new, and whether our definitions of an IP subsystem go far enough.

Are IP Subsystems New?

To read the full article, click here