First generation of such products were built with standard off the shelf components. Designers now have a variety of DSP, microcontroller and RISC cores available to them, and they can easily combine these cores on the same silicon. By judiciously selecting and combining cores, designers can tailor the resulting ASICs to exact requirements and requisite functionality of the products. This flexibility becomes a key ingredient in the success of the products. Benefits in using core based designs are numerous.
Foundry independence means that ASICs can be produced in any fabrication facility that has capacity.
Many companies are taking this core-based design approach for new product designs. LSI Logic is another company which is a firm believer in core based designs. In fact, their CoreWare division's raison d'etre is to provide complex core based solutions. Late model automobiles have several microcontrollers performing various engine functions. One DSP will be the main computing device, while the other DSP will be there just for added reliability and redundancy.