ah yes, remember the perfect storm is coming........

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The role of the IP provider
To help offset some of this complexity—particularly for integration and re-use—there is a fundamental shift happening in the IP industry to place more responsibility on the IP providers. According to Yee, at 90, 65/55 and 40nm, a lot of foundry enablement was in existence. “At that point, you could choose a foundry and it didn’t have a big impact on you. As you go to the more advanced nodes, that changes significantly because now it becomes more about foundry enablement: What do I have in place? We are seeing customers making decisions based on what’s available. Before, everything was available for any foundry and yes, it was difficult, but all the IP was in place at all the different nodes and processes. Today, you don’t have that. At 28nm, most people started their PDK development at 1.0, so things were kind of stable and mature. You developed your IP, it was already at a 1.0 PDK, you knew things weren’t going to change. Today, if you’re looking at 16/14/10nm and so on, people are starting their PDKs at 0.3, 0.5, which mean you know that things are going to change. You have to do a refresh of the IP, so the whole enablement is a little less mature. We see companies deciding what foundry and what process node they’re going to do based on what IP might be available, whereas before you just assumed the IP would be there.”

This translates to the IP supplier becoming a significant influencer in the entire process of choosing, since IP enablement is so critical.

Full article link: http://semiengineering.com/challenges-increase-for-ip-at-advanced-nodes/