Design IP

GOOD GROWTH FOR WIRED AND WIRELESS INTERFACE IP, DECEIVING FOR CPU AND GPU

Good news is welcome, particularly these days! The Design IP market in 2019 is extremely positive, even though the semiconductor market has seen a decline worse than the 2009 economic crisis or 2001 internet bubble collapse. The IP market showed 5.2% growth last year, which we analyze in detail to help understand its future. We think this market is exiting a decade where smartphone explosion fueled IP growth, and entering a decade we expect to be data centric.

DATA-CENTRIC APPLICATIONS DRIVE DESIGN IP DEVELOPMENT

ARM still solidly holds first place in the market, with more than 40% market share, which is staying flat year-over-year. ARM license revenues have grown by 13.8% while royalty revenues have declined by 6%. ARM assigns this loss in royalties to smartphone volume decline. This makes sense, considering ARM’s penetration in CPU and GPU IP in phones. Synopsys and Cadence, respectively second and third, grew respectively by 13.8% and 22.9%. Synopsys’ highest growth come from the interface IP category at 19.3% with other categories also contributing. Cadence’s growth is shared between interface IP thanks to its Nusemi acquisition, but not just that and DSP IP through Tensilica. ARM hardly targets data center application – others provide PCIe, Ethernet, SerDes and memory controller IP.

DATA-CENTRIC APPLICATIONS DRIVE DESIGN IP DEVELOPMENT

In terms of application or market segments, the evolution of interface IP illustrates the move from a market driven by wireless phones to data. In 2010, a large part of the interface IP business was generated by smartphone Systems on Chips (SoCs) integrating protocols like USB, memory controllers, HDMI, DP, SATA and MIPI, but no PCIe or Ethernet.

We expect the highest growth of the IP market to be generated by data centric applications over the next decade. Data-centric applications like data centers, servers, wired networking and 4G/5G base stations will fuel this design IP growth.

test 2018 and 2019 semiconductor design IP industry overview

2018 and 2019 semiconductor design IP revenue by category in millions of dollars

• CPU
• DSP
• GPU and ISP
• Wired interface
• Memory cells/blocks
• Other memory compilers including OTP, MTP, Flash and XRAM
• Physical library
• General purpose analog and mixed signal
• Wireless interface
• Other digital IP

2018 and 2019 semiconductor design IP revenue by type of revenue

• Overall revenue by type of revenue
• Design IP license revenue
• Design IP royalty revenue

Semiconductor design IP revenue by company