Make less work for yourself

Design with ready-made IP cores should be easier but life is never that simple, the author finds. In the ten years or so that it has taken for design reuse, or design with IP, to go from a niche interest to mainstream chip implementation, teams have developed an understanding of what it can do for them, and how to budget accordingly. However, there are still surprises to be negotiated, as some aspects of design reuse are counterintuitive, especially when it comes to reusing some piece of IP developed in-house in another chip. Designers found this out at the end of last years as they converged on the IP-ESC event in Grenoble, France the main conference for IP-based design in Europe.