The global market for interface intellectual property (IP) is forecast to grow to $1.1 billion by 2024, according to new data from Global Industry Analysts.
Growth in interface IP is being driven by the rising demand for a range of smart consumer electronics and communications devices that all demand system-on-chips (SoCs). The market research firm said several manufacturers of smart electronics are increasingly looking to integrate SoCs into various devices including smartphones, wireless communications systems, telemetry devices and electrocardiogram machines.
Additionally, mixed-signal SoC manufacturers are incorporating new functionalities onto a single chip at moderate cost. This is likely to further aid the demand for interface IP in the coming years as well as increasing internet of things (IoT) deployments, rising popularity of mobile computing devices and rising adoption of internet protocol version 6 (IPv6).
Global Industry Analysts projects a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.9% during the forecast period with the U.S. representing the largest regional market share for interface IP at about 37.7% market share. China will be the fastest growing segment with a CAGR of 14.4% over the analysis period driven by increased demand for modern SoCs in the country.
What is IP?
IP is pre-packed design or verification tools that can be purchased via licensing. Semiconductor IP refers to reusable units of IC logic or cell layout, commonly referred to as an IP core or IP block. Modern chip designs are incorporating more future system functionality into one single chip, commonly called an SoC, where pre-designed IP cores have become important as building blocks. These IP cores can be incorporated into field programmable gate array (FPGA) logic designs or application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designs.
Interface IPs are IP cores with interfaces such as Ethernet, DDR4/LPDDR4, HDMI, USB, PCIe, SATA, BT Dual Mode, ZigBee, Wi-Fi and SD/SDIO.
SoC designs bring together IP blocks or IP cores, which refer to pre-designed and verified blocks, and virtual components onto a single chip. Reusable IP cores consist of embedded processors, interface blocks, memory blocks and other components needed for various processing functions.
The full research can be found in Global Industry Analysts report Interface IP — Global Market Trajectory & Analytics.