ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses various types of intellectual property (IP) components and their design methodologies and considers standards-based and IP-based design. Intellectual property, when properly used, reduces design time, increases compatibility with official and de facto standards, and minimizes design risk. A survey of the types of sources that may supply IP is then presented, followed by a brief review of the range of possible licensing terms. Various categories of components, such as central processing units (CPUs) and operating systems, are discussed in more detail. Busses are chosen in part based on the CPU, but the bus also influences the choice of input/output devices and memories that must connect to the bus. Memories are an important category of IP for system-on-chip design. Operating systems must be carefully designed and ported to hardware platforms. Software libraries perform standard functions that need to be efficiently implemented. IP-based design requires somewhat different methodologies than are used when designing with smaller, more uniformly defined components.
