Integration platforms provide numerous design and manufacturing benefits. Taken together, these will result in massive productivity gains for the semiconductor and electronic products industry in the very near future. Prequalifying IP provides enormous advantages. Since the same blocks will be used in standard, predefined ways, continual reverification is eliminated. Another plus with prequalified blocks is that system designers have access to fully characterized IP behavior without hidden implementation guardbands.
Additional benefits accrue in both design and manufacturing.
The cultural and technical shift required to implement widespread IP reuse within an organization is daunting, but it is necessary for companies gearing up to meet the coming productivity challenge in semiconductor design. Others will progress, slowly, toward the goal of widespread reuse by achieving incremental gains, department by department. However, many companies are opting for a more aggressive approach, employing consultants with SOC methodology experience to help them make the necessary shift from traditional to SOC design as rapidly as possible. Effecting this type of change demands that as much attention be paid to the people as to the process and the design technology. Only when all of the many required pieces are put into place does an IP reuse culture begin to flourish.