GRENOBLE — A panel session at the IP-ESC 2009 Conference this week in Grenoble, France, examined IP design and reuse from a business and technology perspective and urged IP and SoC providers to reach compromises.
With the global economic downturn, SoC designers became aware that by outsourcing critical IP they could decrease design time and improve time-to-market. However, collaboration between the IP vendor and the customer must be established, especially if IP reuse is to be achieved.
In his introductory talk at the panel session, Jack Browne, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Sonics, said he sees a clear disconnection between the IP and SoC providers and called for a change to manage expectations on both sides.
He called for an industry shift to a system integration mentality. For that, he urged to design using a top-down approach, to decouple all components including vertical design teams and to focus on differentiation while outsourcing the rest.
The IP market offers a host of opportunities and is promising, noted Stefano Ravaglia, SoC R&D director, Computer System Division, STMicroelectronics. "SoC makers will more and more rely on the IP market because IP makes the difference."
IPs are getting extremely diversified. IPs are a living matter because, Ravaglia explained, IP providers are constantly enhancing their offering with new features. "Every month, I get to see new IPs coming up and it is difficult to keep track."
However, Ravaglia said the IP market is facing what he called the 'in-context' issues. IPs are indeed designed almost with no mean of the context where they will be used, and the SoC context is challenging for IP integration as it goes far beyond the silicon, including package and board.
Obviously, verification is key for IP providers to comply with the quality required, but when it comes to answer the question "will we ever see a bug free IP?" Ravaglia immediately replied "likely not". This has a million dollar implication, and IP providers are not taking any liability, he said.
