IP-SoC Rebound in 2015 !

Going to IP-SoC every year since 2006, I have enjoyed the conference as it’s the only one 100% IP focused and a very good opportunity to network within this rather small ecosystem of IP vendors… but I must admit that, since 2012, the attendance tend to be lower than before. Because of the well-known “chicken & egg” theorem, low attendance was linked with less presentation. Let’s stop IP-SoC bashing here, because the above is not true anymore (just take a look at the impressive presentation list below). It’s really amazing to see the foundry corner, including SMIC as well as TSMC (the clear #1) and STMicroelectronics and GlobalFoundries both communicating about FD-SOI.

You may wonder why 3 foundries out of the top 5 (TSMC, GlobalFoundries and SMIC) are actively participating to IP-SoC as it was not the case in the early 2010’s? I would say that, right after the 2008-2010 economic crisis, the semi (and IP) industry was captivated by China where economy was growing by 10% or so every year and semi start-up were created at the same rate than in the Silicon Valley in the 1990’s. In the same time we have perceived something like “Europe-bashing”, the real business was in Asia, Europe had no future, and so on…

Now, if you consider that TSMC collaborates with IMEC (Leuven, Belgium) to “joins forces with IMEC to strengthen their global R&D”, that GlobalFoundries has licensed FD-SOI technology to STMicroelectronics and the related foundation IP to LETI, you realize that Europe is still a great place for innovation. Nevertheless, if innovation is mandatory to sustain semiconductor market dynamic, you need to sell chips or wafers to create healthy business.

What are the buzzwords when talking about the semiconductor future? Big data (servers), IoT and Automotive are the businesses expected to bring $ value and profit tomorrow. I left Mobile market apart, on purpose, as the market is going to commoditize, still providing high value but lower profits. Big data is clearly dominated by the US and Intel. Which semiconductor market segment is expected to provide the higher CAGR up to 2020? It’s the Automotive market segment. Who are the big players in this segment? Many of them are located in Europe (Japan, USA too).

Even if I don’t think that IoT killer application will come from Europe but rather from the US (or China?), you will find a bunch of semi companies selling microcontrollers, like NXP, STMicroelectronics or Infineon able to address IoT needs.

You will find a well busy track dedicated to IoT, including a panel. The other tracks deal with IP strategy, standard and innovation in IP, FPGA, or Embedded… By the way, I will be happy to present a paper “MIPI beyond Mobile…”, reworked from the presentation made during the DAC 2015 and nominated from “Best Paper Award”. See you in IP-SoC in Grenoble, on December the 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] and 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] !

From Eric Esteve from IPNEST

IP-SoC 2015 presentations:

Foundry Corner and Innovation in Technology
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| “Smic’s IP Platform and Design Services” by Hongying Wu, Sr Director of IP Alliance Program, SMIC
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| “Automotive Electronics” by Marco Vrouwe, TSMC
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| “FDSOI is taking on speed as platform and a European focus project” by Gerd Teepe, GlobalFoundries
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| “FDSOI IP Shop: The key enabler of success” by Patrick Blouet, Collaborative program manager, STMicroelectronics
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• IP SoC Strategies and Vision
[TABLE]
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| “Strategies for SoC / IP Design for Emerging Applications:An Indian perspective” by Samir Patel, Sankalp Semiconductor
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| “Assessing and managing the IP Sourcing Risk” by Philippe Quinio, STMicroelectronics
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| “Semiconductor Industry Consolidation Wave: What is left for IP Companies” by Sanjeev Kumar Sharma, Terminus Circuits
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• Standards and Innovation in IP Design
[TABLE]
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| “MIPI Beyond Mobile: Preferred IP for IoT, Wearable, Automotive” by Eric Esteve, IP Nest
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| “Why Embedded NVM is an Important Part of Every SoC” by Xerxes Wania, Sidense
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• What’s special on FPGA
[TABLE]
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| “What an FPGA Vendor Knows about IP Reuse” by Ron Wilson, Altera
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| “Qualifying and tuning external IP though FPGA prototyping” by Huy-Nam Nguyen, Atos
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• Technical Highlights in Power Optimization
[TABLE]
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| “Power Planning and Timing Signoff Solutions” by Jean-Luc Pelloie, ARM
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| “Autonomous Power Subsystem IP” by Drew Wingard, Sonics
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• Embedded Systems
[TABLE]
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| “Embedded Software is Everywhere” by Colin Walls, Mentor Graphics
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• IoT
[TABLE]
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| “IP That Will Drive Energy-Efficient IoT Designs” by Philippe Borges, Field Applications Engineer, Synopsys
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| “Making IoT Security a Reality” by Bart Stevens, Director of Product Management, Mobile and Networking Hardware Security Solutions, Inside Secure
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| “Innovative Energy Savings Using GZIP IP Within IoT Devices” by Nikos Zervas, CAST
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| “The impact of IoT on IP Program” organized by Hal Barbour (CAST) with the participation of Nikos Zervas (CAST), Bart Stevens (Inside Secure), Philippe Borges (Synopsys), Philippe Quinio (STMicroelectronics), Matjaz Breskver (Beyond Semiconductor)

More presentation or registration here
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