Industry Expert Blogs

Will the launch of ARC based complete sound system IP by Synopsys ring the bell for the opening of a new IP market segment, the “Subsystem IP”? If you look at the IP market evolution, starting from standard cell libraries and memory compiler offering in the 1990’s, moving to commodity functions like UART or I2C in the late 1990’s to finally come to complexes functions offer in the 2000’s, the long list of standard based PCI, PCIe, USB 2.0, SATA and more, and if you start brainstorming, you will likely think that subsystem IP should be the next step. Your customers, the SoC integrators, have to fill IC with more and more function, the technology make it possible (think 40 or 28nm) and their customer ask for it. But the time to market (TTM) pressure, especially in market like wireless or consumer electronic, is so strong that the design team has to integrate more functions, in a technology more difficult to manage, that the “lego” solution (building a complete system by integrating – not designing- various subsystems) looks very attractive. Then, you think that subsystem IP is the ideal solution!

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