Global Semiconductor Intellectual Property (IP) Market By Design IP (Processor IP, Interface IP, Memory IP), By IP Core (Soft Core, Hard Core), By IP Source (Royalty, Licensing), By End User (IDM, Foundry, OSAT), By Vertical (Consumer Electronics, Telecom & Datacenters, Automotive, Commercial, Industrial), By Region, and Key Companies - Industry Segment Outlook, Market Assessment, Competition Scenario, Trends and Forecast 2021-2031

In semiconductors, an Intellectual Property (IP) core is a reusable logic or functionality unit, a cell, or a layout design that is typically designed to license numerous vendors for use as building blocks in various chip designs.

More and more system functionality is being integrated into single chips (System on Chip/SOC designs) in today’s Integrated Circuit (IC) designs age. These pre-designed IP cores/blocks are becoming increasingly significant in SOC designs. This is because most SOC designs use a standard microprocessor and a lot of system functionality is standardized, and so can be reused across multiple designs if created once.

Many of the components are standardized protocols and designs, such as the ARM bus protocols AHB and APB, and designs such as Ethernet, SPI, USB, and the UART core, among others. All of them can be built as stand-alone IP cores/blocks and licensed to a variety of design firms and for various designs.

Soft IP cores and hard IP cores are the two types of IP cores available. Soft IP cores are IP blocks that can be synthesized as Register-Transfer Level (RTL) models. These are written in a Hardware Description Language (HDL), such as System Verilog or VHSIC Hardware Description Language (VHDL).

Hard IP cores, on the other hand, are available as layout designs in a format such as Graphic Database System (GDS) that is mapped to process technology and may be inserted directly into the chip’s final layout by a consumer. These cores are not adaptable to various process technologies.

Detailed Segmentation –

Based on Design IP:

• Processor IP
• Interface IP
• Memory IP
• Other Design IPs

Based on IP Core:

• Soft Core
• Hard Core

Based on IP Source:

• Royalty
• Licensing

Based on End User:

• IDM
• Foundry
• OSAT
• Other end-users

Based on Vertical:

• Consumer Electronics
• Telecom & Datacenters
• Automotive
• Commercial
• Industrial
• Other Verticals

Based on Region:

• North America
• Europe
• Asia-Pacific
• South America
• Middle East & Africa

Market Dynamics –

Drivers:

Various communication protocols, such as Near-Field Communication (NFC), Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, are used to connect devices to other devices or networks. Smart transmitters and receivers are built into these gadgets, which detect key signals and relay information on demand.

Over the last three years, semiconductor companies have collaborated with hardware, networking, and software businesses, as well as industry groups and academic consortia, to build formal and informal IoT standards.

Over the last several years, there has been an increase in the use of linked devices such as smartphones, wearables, connected vehicles, and smart home systems in daily life. The incorporation of power electronics in these devices is projected to boost the semiconductor IP industry worldwide. In the future, the market demand for high-performance with low-power consumption capabilities will grow even more.

Restraints:

The design complexity, chip form factor, and IP core design architecture of a semiconductor chip change when the nodes of the chip are modified. The effective implementation of these chips in advanced technologies, such as 20nm planar and FinFET processes, is a constraint in advanced SoC design. Migration to an advanced technology node raises design costs for IP providers, and fees for licensing IP that is appropriate for the new technology node may not keep pace with the increase in costs.

Opportunities:

Highly advanced, complicated electronic systems are becoming increasingly important in the avionics & aerospace, as well as defense industries. The need for electrical and semiconductor hardware components are increasing in these industries, necessitating the development of new chip manufacturing design solutions.

The demand for advanced and highly complicated semiconductor technology in avionics, aerospace, and defense applications presents semiconductor chip producers with unprecedented hurdles. To meet the demands for new and growing avionics, aerospace, and defense applications, programmable chip platforms are fast being implemented.

Superior data processing performance, hard-coded semiconductor IP components for embedded processing, DSP, and tremendously fast and long-range signal communication are some of the requirements. All of these reasons may result in opportunities for the semiconductor IP market to expand accordingly.

Trends:

Emerging technologies like graphene transistors, self-organizing molecular machines, carbon nanotubes, and quantum computing can theoretically overcome the physical restrictions of previously proven semiconductor technologies.

Furthermore, such radical developments have the potential to replace established technologies, opening-up numerous prospects for the IP semiconductor business. The cost of designing and producing semiconductor IPs is steadily reducing.

For example, Monolithic 3D IC technology is advantageous due to reduced die size, process scaling, heterogeneous integration, and several layers being processed simultaneously. The rise in prominence of the semiconductor Intellectual Property (IP) sector is aided by this decrease in cost. Furthermore, firms are constantly contributing technical leadership to the semiconductor industry by developing sophisticated and significant SoC.

Competitive Landscape –

• Arm Holdings Ltd.
• Fujitsu Limited
• Synopsys Inc.
• Cadence Design Systems Inc.
• Imagination Technologies
• CEVA Inc.
• eMemory Technology Incorporated
• Lattice Semiconductor Corp.
• Open-Silicon Inc.
• Mentor Graphics Corporation
• Achronix Semiconductor Corporation
• Rambus Inc.

Recent Developments:

• In June 2020, IMG iEW400, the latest IP based on Ensigma Wi-Fi technology was released by Imagination Technologies. This new IP is designed for low-power and battery-powered applications such as the Internet of Things (IoT), wearables, and hearables, and provides integrated RF and baseband from a single source.
• In May 2020, ARM introduced a new processor IP line aimed at improving the next-generation smartphone experience in the 5G arena. The ARM Cortex-A78 CPU, ARM Mali-G78 GPU, and ARM Ethos-N78 NPU are among them.
• In March 2020, Cadence teamed up with STMicroelectronics (Switzerland), a prominent semiconductor equipment maker, to develop a 56G-VSR SerDes for networking, cloud, and data center SoC. Cadence’s SoC design excellence is likely to benefit from this partnership.

For the Semiconductor Intellectual Property (IP) Market research study, the following years have been considered to estimate the market size: