IP-SoC trip report (part II): system level mantra

By SemiWiki

January 24, 2011

“IP Innovation is moving from component level to system level”. This mantra was heard during the conference, from various speakers: during the keynote talk by Ganesh R. from Gartner and presentation "Integration-Optimized IP from Cadence" by Ranga Srinivasan, also during discussion around coffee (or a glass of wine, but this was in the evening).

I guess everybody will agree on the principle, somehow it’s like moving from LSI to VLSI 30 or 40 years ago. Cadence’ presentation interest was to clearly state the problem the chip maker involved in SoC design are facing. First, the IP integration costs are the most rising, between Software, Hardware and IP, as it can be seen on Figure 1. In fact, this IP Integration cost has doubled from 2005 to 2010 to reach $5B, and will again doubled to reach $10B in 2014. To make it clear, this is the total cost of ownership for a certain IP, not only the License cost. Within five years (in 2015), it will represent 25% of the total cost to develop a SoC.

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