Semiconductor IP News and Trends Blog

IP at the Crossroads

By John Blyler

What’s this—another blog on IP? Is that necessary?

Everyone in the world knows that “IP” stands for “intellectual property.” Well, everyone except for network professionals. For them, “IP” refers to “Internet protocol,” the packet-level standard used to communicate throughout the World Wide Web. Of course, Internet Protocol packet-router chips are packed full of proprietary and third-party semiconductor intellectual property—the later IP that implements the former IP.

Indeed, today’s packet-router system-on-a-chip (SoC) devices represent a duality of IP meanings (i.e., intellectual property within Internet-protocol technology). A prime example of this duality is found in network-on-a-chip (NoC) devices. Here, communication between blocks of intellectual property (IP) on the chip is accomplished using Internet-protocol (IP), packet-based switch standards similar to those used on the Internet.

Confused? Let me clarify. The “IP Insider” blog will focus on semiconductor intellectual property—called SIP. Naturally, the term isn’t to be confused with the “system-in-package” acronym for multi-die arrangements. In a growing number of SoC devices, a variety of processors, logic, analog, and memory semiconductor IP are integrated in physically separate chip dies within a single package.

Is it all clear now? No? That’s because semiconductor IP—or simply IP—is found throughout the chip industry. It’s everywhere. It matters. More importantly, it has reached a milestone that will change it at a fundamental level. (But more on that in my next blog.)

IP has always provided an inside advantage to chip companies. In the niche world of the electronic design automation (EDA) of SoC devices, IP has helped to: close the infamous design gap with silicon; launch a new industry of fabless companies; and provide a way to meet incredibly small time-to-market (TTM) windows. In terms of dollars, Gartner Dataquest estimates that the semiconductor-IP market will reach $2.3 billion in 2014. Semico Research pegs the growth closer to $3 billion for that same year.

While these numbers are impressive, they don’t tell the whole story. The creation, use, and acceptance of IP continues to grow. But the character of IP is changing in much the same way that the character of silicon chip design, verification, integration, and packaging is shifting. All of these perturbations are interrelated—at once the cause and the effect.

Times of change represent windows of opportunity. They also provide a venue for additional voices, such as this blog. What will I be covering in “IP Insider?” Will it involve juicy tidbits about overweight, celebrity IP? Or scandalous accounts of individual IPs that just don’t play well together? Yes and no. I won’t focus on personalities or products, but rather the technology behind the terms—the IP behind the hype.

If semiconductor IP is everywhere, where do you start? At the beginning? No, the world is moving too quickly for that. I’ll jump right to the front, picking topics from the latest headlines to explain why the underlying IP technology is important.

Today’s headlines are rich with the dynamic play between EDA tools, SoC design, analog and digital integration, and the shifting balances between ASIC and FPGA implementation. Examining how these topics will play out in both horizontal and vertical market segments will add an extra dimension to the potential discussions.

This is a lot to cover, but it’s a task worth the undertaking. I hope you’ll join me by sharing your comments and observations. I look forward to an active dialog with the worldwide audience of IP professionals.