Semiconductor intellectual property core

As an IP core (of English intellectual property core) wiederbenutzbarer a part of a chip designs is referred to (in the sense of construction plans ) in the semiconductor industry. This includes the intellectual property of the developer or manufacturer. Companies such as ARM and MIPS Technologies Limited (processors ), Imagination Technologies ( graphics cores ) or CEVA, Inc. ( digital signal processors ) have specialized parts or entire integrated circuits to design and licenses these designs to sell. Chip manufacturers are expanding the licensed cores then additional peripheral components such as graphics cores, analog -to-digital converter and standardized interfaces to develop a system -on-a - chip for a specific application. The licensee thereby reduced by shopping often tested standard designs its risk, accelerates development time and simplifies in the licensing of processors and software development. Depending on the application, the IP core can be made ​​here as an ASIC or, for smaller designs, are loaded as a configuration in an FPGA. Related to this implementable in hardware IP is the so-called "verification IP". These are reusable software components which are used for the verification of the hardware and the hardware, in particular IP cores.

IP cores for ASICs

A distinction is made between soft IP and hard IP Core:

  • A soft IP core exists in the form of source code in a dedicated hardware description language such as Verilog or VHDL. It can also act as already synthesized by the manufacturer netlist as a textual description of a circuit diagram, are present. One speaks in this case of Firm IP cores. In commercial IP cores, or IP cores with procedures secrets the netlist can also be in encrypted form.
  • A hard - IP core is a ready " layouteter " block. Thus, the user may have little or no changes to the IP to make and is tied to a process. For the protection of secrets method a user often gets only a black- box representation of a purchased hardware IP cores. The content is then only the Foundry or a service provider known to the finished illustrates the layout of the chip. Analog circuits are always implemented as hard IP.

IP cores for FPGAs

Even with the IP cores for FPGAs distinction is made between soft - core and hard- cores:

  • Soft -Cores are available as source code or in the form of a netlist and be implemented in the programmable area of an FPGA. Soft cores thus correspond to the soft IP in ASICs. An IP core, which is present in the source code, can be used for both FPGAs and ASICs. In contrast, this soft cores can be used only with a specific FPGA model in the form of a netlist. Therefore, there is often IP core generators, with which the user can generate netlists for different FPGA models of a manufacturer. Typical examples of soft - cores are on the particular FPGA architecture optimized processor cores such as the Nios II from Altera or Xilinx MicroBlaze, which are integrated with their programs in the FPGA when needed. Another class is the interface controller buses such as I2C and SPI as well as the controller for controlling the external DRAM memory modules.
  • Hard cores are integrated as a complete circuit manufacturer unchangeable in the chip of the FPGA. The advantage is that hardware cores occupy less chip area and usually faster than with freely programmed logic implemented soft cores can work. A disadvantage is the inability to mount their own adaptations or a port (migration ) to other logic families who do not have the usually very specific hardware cores to perform. So most FPGAs contain dedicated memory blocks as well as finished multipliers, which are instantiated by the synthesis software, if necessary. Larger FPGAs offer sometimes even complete processors such as the PowerPC cores in FPGAs Virtex - Series from Xilinx. In addition, interface controller for more complex interfaces such as Ethernet, SerDes for the implementation of high-speed interfaces such as PCI - Express and S- ATA may be included.

Provider

For the design of ASICs commercial IP cores from different manufacturers on offer. Freely available IP cores there are, for example, in OpenCores.org.

In FPGAs, the manufacturers usually offer IP cores.

Foundry model Serial Peripheral Interface Bus I²C Terrestrial Trunked Radio
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