IP Integration: Not a Simple Operation

Gabe Moretti, Chip Design Mag
May 13, 2014

Although the IP industry is about 25 years old, it still presents problems typical of immature industries. Yet, the use of IP in systems design is now so popular one is hard press to find even one system design that does not use IP. My first reaction to the use of IP is “back to the future”.

For many years of my professional career I dealt with board level design as well as chip design. Between 1970 and 1990 IP was sold as discrete components by companies such as Texas Instruments, National, and Fairchild among many others. Their databooks described precisely how to integrate the part in a design. Although a defined standard for the contents did not exist, a de-facto standard was followed by all providers. Engineers, using the databooks information would choose the correct part for their needs and the integration was reasonably straight forward. All signals could be analyzed in the lab since pins and traces were available on the board.

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