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One of the most pressing problems silicon and software designers face today is the rising design costs they face at each new process node going forward. These costs have an impact on the number of 1^st time System-on-a-Chip (SoC) designs and the resultant derivative designs.

Today, silicon designs show rapidly increasing levels of complexity in response to end user demands for more connectivity and the ability to use that connectivity in applications like downloading video, video conferencing, device hot spots, increasing camera resolution for richer photos and better screen resolution to enhance user experience.   An additional trend is to include sensors of every type for a better interface and interaction with the outside world.

In the last 10 years, the semiconductor industry has undergone a considerable amount of change driven by the need to increase integration to meet rising customer expectations of performance and functionality. In the System-on-Chip (SoC) market, this has been accomplished by the increasing use of discrete 3rd Party Semiconductor Intellectual Property (SIP) blocks of all types to aid SoC designers in crafting ever more complex silicon solutions.

Today, everywhere we turn we hear speakers give presentations at conferences and industry events despairing how the rise in silicon design costs is hampering the semiconductor industries growth path. As part of this problem, we now recognize that software design costs have eclipsed silicon design efforts and have become the largest portion of the SoC creation effort. In addition, IP integration costs are now rising as more discrete IP blocks are infused into SoC designs today.