The integration of third party intellectual property (IP): Reuse of IP cores

IP reuse is a multi-billion dollar segment of the Integrated Circuit design industry. With its ever growing use in SoC designs, IP quality, integration, and reuse has become an important issue in any successful design. Choosing the wrong piece of IP can increase time to market, or even result in a failed design. The use of such standards as the VSIA Quality IP metric can help in quantifying IP and by doing so, risks can be greatly reduced. By taking a chip through an entire design cycle, and utilizing third party IP within the design, IP quality and reuse can be commented on. It can be shown that with the use of the VSIA Quality IP metric, IP can be successfully quantified, and the design cycle can be shortened with reduced risk. As a result, third party IP can be used with a higher degree of confidence in any design.