Letter to the editor: IP holds the SoC key (Bob Tait, S3)

 
I received a plethora of e-mails regarding my recent article, entitled "Opinion: Semi IP sector is a lost cause"

Then, I asked for the IP vendors themselves to respond to a set of questions. Here's one letter to the editor:

Editor,

IP is the bedrock of the SoC industry. Who can imagine designing a SoC on a leading-edge process, such as 90nm, 65nm or below, without using IP in the form of processors, memories, standard cells, I/Os, application-specific function blocks and mixed-signal converters?

IP holds the key to the future of the semiconductor industry and there are many talented engineers who are working hard to deliver the full potential of these intellectual property building blocks.

The beauty of these IP blocks or cores revolves around the fact that they are industry-standard, reusable, energy efficient, versatile and can meet the time-to-market, time-to-revenue demands of semiconductor designers and their end customers. The availability of these IP building blocks helps speed the actual design onto a system-on-a-chip, thus addressing performance, market timing and form- factor issues.

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