Semiconductor IP market rising, says iSuppli

The iSuppli estimate for the size of the semiconductor IP market is smaller than that of market research company Gartner Inc., which in June valued the 2004 semiconductor IP market at $1.27 billion, up 21 percent on 2003. Gartner is also bullish about growth of semiconductor IP, arguing that analog and mixed-signal circuit blocks are becoming licensable.

The figures from iSuppli would give the market a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.6 percent over the period, which would also mean that it will exceed the growth rate of the overall semiconductor market, and such segments as ASICs, programmable logic devices (PLDs) and application-specific standard products (ASSPs).

Royalties are becoming the largest source of revenue in the IP market, iSuppli said.

This offers benefits to both vendors and customers, with the former enjoying a share of the chip revenue stream, and the latter the opportunity to offload some portion of the development risk to their IP supplier. In the long-term this means that semiconductor IP market growth will be more closely tied to growth in semiconductor sales, particularly core silicon revenues, rather than to new design starts.