Kalar Rajendiran
eSilicon

Today's electronics industry is a fast-changing environment driven by ever-shrinking design cycles, smaller design geometries, and increasing gate counts. Manufacturers must carefully balance growing demand for more sophisticated, feature-loaded products with their ability to handle increasing system design complexity. Compounding these demands is a wide array of emerging technology standards and ever-increasing global competition.

These pressures are causing a shift in the way Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and semiconductor companies approach the design process. They are increasingly forced to adopt a process that leverages the physical design and integration expertise of third-party experts, via the Value Chain Producer (VCP) model. One of the many benefits of this model is the successful integration of third-party Intellectual Property (IP) into chips—a key factor in the success or failure of a product. This article delves into the VCP design methodology and details the advantages it offers for IP integration in today's processor designs.