TSMC expands IP alliance to welcome soft IP

TSMC has now expanded its IP Alliance to incorporate a soft IP program which will improve soft IP readiness for advanced technology nodes and promote earlier time-to-market.

TSMC is expected to give specific design documents and technology information through the program so that partners could maximize their soft IP to TSMC's technology. TSMC will also work with these companies to expedite soft IP readiness by aligning their development with TSMC's process technology roadmap.

Soft IP has historically been process technology independent and therefore was not optimized for power, performance and area considerations. But given the ever-increasing need of first time silicon success and early time-to-market for highly integrated circuits such as System-on-Chip (SoC), close technical collaboration between the foundry and the IP provider is imperative to maximize this critical trade-off.

The new program enhances TSMC's IP alliance portfolio, encouraging soft IP innovation and reuse through TSMC's Open Innovation Platform initiative. Likewise, it assists delivery of power, performance and area optimization which are particularly important considerations in the success of products, at advanced technology nodes.

Deputy director for IP Portfolio Marketing at TSMC, Dan Kochpatcharin says, "We work with soft IP partners to combine TSMC's foundry-leading technologies and manufacturing capability with their soft IP cores to address this [trade-off inherent in large SoC designs] concern."

TSMC launched the soft IP program by working with EDA and IP companies Arteris, Atrenta Inc., Cadence Design Systems, Inc., Chips & Media, Imagination Technologies, Intrinsic-ID, MIPS Technologies, Sonics, Inc., Synopsys, Inc. and Vivante Corp.

The TSMC Open Innovation Platform promotes timeliness-driven innovation among the semiconductor design community, ecosystem partners, and TSMC's complete technology portfolio. The Open Innovation Platform includes a set of ecosystem interfaces and collaborative components initiated and supported by TSMC.