May 30th, 2019 – By: Ann Steffora Mutschler
How it is characterised, verified and used can have a big impact on reliability and compatibility in a design.
Differentiating good IP from mediocre or bad IP is getting more difficult, in part because it depends up on how and where it is used and in part because even the best IP may work better in one system than another—even in chips developed by the same vendor.
This has been one of the challenges with IP over the years. In many cases, IP is poorly characterised, regardless of whether that IP was commercially or internally developed by a chipmaker. But as chips become more complex, subject to more interactions from multiple power domains and use cases, even the best intentions to characterise IP can go awry.