Posted: 9:00 p.m. EST, 3/30/98

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The Reusable Application Specific Intellectual Property Developers industry group (Rapid) plans to add Internet access and electronic commerce to its over-the-Web catalog of intellectual-property (IP) cores, which is expected to be available in May.

In development since August 1997, the catalog is expected to go live early in May with more than 100 cores from about 20 Rapid members, said Tom Senna, business development a nd strategic marketing manager at LogicVision Inc. (San Jose, Calif.), and vice chairman of Rapid (Dallas) . Rapid gave an online demonstration of the catalog at the recent IP98 conference and exhibition.

Rapid's catalog will compete for "hits" with an established Internet catalog of IP cores operated by Design & Reuse S.A. (Grenoble, France) , which went live last October. The D&R site now lists about 1,200 cores from about 76 IP providers and about 600 registered users, according to Gabriele Saucier, founder of D&R.

Whereas D&R aims to make its site as comprehensive as possible, the Rapid system will only be populated with data from Rapid members. But Senna expects Rapid's catalog, which will be constructed with members' full support, to become an important resource for those looking to find IP cores that are av ailable for licensing and importation into chip designs.

Both Rapid and D&R are offering their classification schemes for IP core types to the Virtual Socket Interface (VSI) Alliance for adoption as a standard. Both will offer free searches, though D&R has decided to charge companies that wish to use its Java-based IP database software internally as the basis of a corporate IP cataloguing system.

Rapid may struggle to compete with D&R on the size of its database, but Senna said he thought it would be a stimulus to persuade IP creators to sign up and join the industry grouping.

Senna added that Rapid had plans to go beyond providing access to text-based information about cores. He said Rapid is working toward the introduction of electronic distribution of cores over the Web and, finally, the support of electronic commerce.

"Phase two will include the ability to get simulation models so that you can do Web-based licensing and authentication," he said. "The third phase will be ful l Web-based commerce." The second phase will be introduced toward the end of 1998, and the third phase will come sometime in 1999, he said.

One method of downloading cores for early access could use an encrypted form of FPGA configuration file targeted at Gatefield FPGAs. "Gatefield has a secure bit which prevents copying," Senna said, explaining that it might be possible for Rapid users to download a core for use in a Gatefield FPGA. The users would not be able to determine or copy the contents of the FPGA but could use the device on a breadboard to satisfy themselves of a core's functional suitability. "Gatefield has made an offer to Rapid," he said.

When the Rapid catalog goes live it will be accessible through two its own Web site and through EDTN, the Electronic Design and Technology Network , a joint venture of Aspect Development Inc. and CMP Media Inc., the publisher of EE Times .

Fujitsu Microelectronics Inc. (San Jose, Calif.) has helped support the catalog. To accelerate development, Fujitsu offered Rapid the specification of its internal IP catalog in February. "Fujitsu has been working on an intranet IP system since 1995," said Takeshi Fuse, global marketing and alliance manager for IP strategy at Fujitsu Microelectronics. "We offered our format to Rapid for adoption. We have the system internally although it's not 100 percent compatible." The main differences were due to Fujitsu's intranet differing slightly from Rapid's Internet requirements, Fuse said.

Fujitsu would like to move toward a seamless environment where Fujitsu engineers would have access to all internal IP and Rapid IP through a single user interface, Fuse said.

Other companies may wish to adopt the same approach, according to Senna. For that reason, the Rapid specification was open and will be available to those who want to implement it, he said.

Separately at the IP98 conference, Design & Reuse launched IP Manager, an intranet IP management system a imed at assisting large design houses for internal IP retrieval, modification and update for reuse. It also supports IP exchange within internal design centers.

"This product should be of great help to all large electronic design houses which have to cope with the urgent need of implementing a reuse strategy," said D&R founder Saucier.

The key technology is a Java-written engine dedicated to IP retrieval and exchange. D&R picked Java as the underlying technology for its portability and flexibility within different operating systems, the company said.

Although D&R has its own taxonomy, Saucier stressed that the IP Manager is customizable. A corporation may define its own taxonomy, keywording and tagging.

"At the moment we will only serve our sponsors with installation of IP manager," Saucier said. "We are working with Philips Semiconductors on an evaluation and with Alcatel Microelectronics ."

"We are interested in the Design and Reuse IP manager but we would like to mak e it compatible with database systems we already use internally," said Eric Shutz, strategic business development director at Alcatel Microelectronics (Brussels, Belgium). "Not the other way around."

Siemens is also looking at the product. "Siemens Semiconductor Group is interested in the IP Management System of D&R and their efforts in normalizing the IP description formats," said Michael Strafner, vice president for semicustom and tools at the chip maker. "Siemens is considering the evaluation of this product as it corresponds to our internal needs."

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