Time was when it seemed as if small, boutique shops would be the ones to craft specialized and unique silicon intellectual-property products. But now we've moved on to the department store era of IP, where sizable companies with broad offerings and large sales forces have taken over most of the business.

In late July, as Synopsys announced its intention to purchase InSilicon, the era of independent commodity IP providers nearly came to an end. There aren't a lot of companies left in this once-promising business, which provides cores for PCI, USB, IEEE 1394 and other interface standards. InSilicon is the largest remaining independent company, and is one of the few survivors.

According to Dataquest estimates, commodity IP accounted for just $114 million in 2001, a fraction of the $892 silicon IP market. In commodity IP, Synopsys held a 27.6 percent market share, Mentor Graphics 17.4 percent and InSilicon 15.1 percent. That means Synopsys and Mentor will now dominate that market.

Buying commodity IP will be more akin to buying a T-shirt at Kmart than walking into a small, locally owned T-shirt shop.

The lion's share of the IP market is what is called "star" IP. This includes complex microprocessors, DSPs, memories and analog blocks. The names here are familiar: ARM, MIPS, Rambus, DSP Group. These are not huge corporations, but they're not family-owned haberdasheries, either. They have global sales forces and international reach. You might think of buying star IP as somewhat like buying a colorful, expensive tie from the Tie Rack, an international chain specializing in ties and scarves.

But the latest trend among IP suppliers is to provide more than just ties-I mean, cores-and to offer "platforms" that also include peripherals and a predefined bus architecture. An example is ARM's PrimeXsys wireless platform, which combines an ARM core with Java acceleration, an Amba bus and a selection of peripherals.

Similarly, Parthus offers Bluetooth platforms, PalmChip has the PalmPak configurable system-on-chip platform and the DSP Group recently announced XperTeak, billing it as a "complete DSP-core subsystem."

I think of buying platform IP as similar to walking into the Men's Wearhouse, a heavily advertised West Coast chain where a salesperson will help you pull together a coordinated "look" with suit, shirts and ties that's customized for you.

Any bets on when Synopsys and Mentor will offer "blue-light specials" on PCI and USB cores?

http://www.eetimes.com/