Wafer Foundry Integrated with Third Party Become Tendency

Published:2011/3/4 2:27:00 Author:Amy From:SeekIC

Recently, chip design has become more and more complex and the demand for verified IP has been increasing. The report of GSA shows that in 2010 the amount of IP that IC designers supplied to wafer foundry has surpassed the number of third party suppliers whose main business is IP licensing. In order to shorten the period from design to produce, two of TSMC’s and UMC’s subsidiaries have become major beneficiaries under the trend of IP licensing market.

The investigation conducted by GSA shows that despite self-owned IP occupies 66 percent owing to chip design block mainly based on self-owned technology. But more and more IC designers start to rely on wafer foundry since last year. It was 18 percent offered by wafer foundry while third party IP suppliers have drop to 16 percent.

With regard to products cost structure, the cost for foundry is 54 percent, package and testing 36 percent and third party IP licensing 7 percent.

Some industry insiders point out that the period from design to produce should be shortened by expanding cooperation areas such as adopting verified IP from wafer foundry.

Since TSMC established OIP in 2008, it has laid the foundation for fighting IP licensing market.
The chairman of TSMC said that wafer foundry ought to cooperate with high-end design firms instead of only offering chip manufacturing service and assistant client to shorten design period and reduce cost.

Faraday now is main IP supplier for IC design firms since UMC divided IP and NRE department to become a subsidiary. As the capacity of wafer foundry is in tight spot, Faraday can supply verified IP for taping out to cut the lead time down. The general manager of Faraday anticipated that the revenue of IP service will grow 30 percent. The related integrated circuit is NCV4264-2.

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