ARM has been from the nameless name to the present, but it has been more than ten years. On the one hand, the prosperity of mobile phone 32-bit processors has created the success of ARM, and on the Other hand, the popularity of IP (intellectual property) is helping. IP brings about a revolution in SoC design. The new SoC design approach puts soft/hard IP in the design of the module, and the engineers only need to make minor adjustments. SoC's design approach accelerates design speed, shortens product development time and time to market, and on the other hand gives product design more flexibility. Engineers can add or remove IP according to actual application, which is more in line with customized development trends. .
Mingxing Star IP has become one of the success factors
In recent years, the global semiconductor IP market is growing at a gratifying rate. According to a report released last year by Gartner, the semiconductor IP market (referred to as IP on the global open market) increased by 24.9% in 2006 to reach $1.8 billion, and by 2010 this market will reach $2.7 billion. The analysis of another research institute, Semico Research, is more optimistic (Figure 1). They pointed out that the global semiconductor IP market reached US$2.07 billion in 2006, an increase of 16% from 2005 and an increase of US$4.06 billion in 2010. Stay at 18.3%.
The IP market has experienced a mature development in the past five years, and the demand for semiconductor IP has moved from the design of standard functions to more complex fields. In particular, Star IP has been ahead of the Common IP (Commodity IP) and will widen the gap in the next five years. The average annual growth rate of the Mingxing IP market in the next five years is as high as 20.7%, far higher than the 13.7% of the general IP. Universal IP is designed with the same standard and is widely used, such as PLLs, I/O units, ADCs, and more. Ming Star IP is a concept that was proposed several years ago to distinguish the brand and high-performance IC modules from General IP. Its design is more complicated and often placed in more high-end applications such as Wireless USB, Bluetooth 3.0 and so on. Mingxing Star IP brings much higher profits to IP companies than general IP, so Gartner also predicts that Fabless will increase its investment in complex IP module design in order to compete with Foundry vendors in revenue. The success factor of IP companies is that they must have a star-rated IP. Companies like ARM, MIPS, Tensilica and other popular embedded processor products fall into this category.
Compared to other IC design industries, IP companies only provide customer IP and IP libraries, and their profits come from patent fees. In addition to choosing to invent star IP, the mature IP business model is also an important way to ensure the profit of IP companies. The current main profit methods include IP licensing, patent royalties, and training and technical support fees. The former two are the main source of income for IP companies, and they are long-term stable cooperation models. In addition to bringing in certain income, the latter can also cultivate customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Lower the threshold for domestic IP demand
In 2006, China's semiconductor market has accounted for 22% of the global market, and there are also 100 IC design companies in China. However, China's IP market is only 56.1 million US dollars, only 0.027% of the global market (Figure 1), which is in its infancy. China's local IC design companies are mainly distributed in popular areas such as consumer electronics, telecommunications networks and security cards. These markets are growing rapidly, while at the same time bringing a lot of IP demand. According to analysis by Semico Research, China's IP market will grow to 247 million US dollars by 2010, accounting for 6% of the global market, with an average annual growth rate of 44.9%, far exceeding the global market's 18.3%.
Domestic IC design companies, except for a few outstanding ones, are mostly in the initial stage and face great cost pressures, which is quite different from mature markets such as Europe, America and Japan. To this end, IP companies are also trying to provide more flexible business models to ease their pressure. For example, some IP companies offer free IP design kit downloads, allowing users to complete front-end design, reducing user input risk and IP usage thresholds, and users can decide whether to purchase licenses after the design is basically completed.
The IP module is faced with a wide range of IC design companies, each with differentiated requirements, which requires IP products to be used by different customers. According to Zhang Jing-Fan, Director of Development Business, Synopsys' Designware IP Business Unit, IP companies can improve the ease of use of products by pre-setting parameters based on customer needs, providing integrated solutions that integrate multiple IPs, unifying product descriptions and user manuals. .
The success of P company is not only to use the appropriate business model to license IP to users, but also to develop products with performance requirements, to provide supporting development tools and localized technical support, so that users can complete the faster and more convenient Obtaining IP to complete the design of the chip is also a manifestation of competitiveness. Users' IP service requirements are higher than those of the supporting development tools. Providing online support without time zone differences and providing consulting and services with local engineers are good ways to improve the quality of after-sales service.
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Huerler Lighting Equipment Co., Ltd , http://www.sz-ledlights.com