James O'Riordan, CTO, S3, spoke at a panel session on the IEEE International SoC Conference in September 2009.

1. Containing complexity:
Keeping the costs of SoC James O’Riordan
CTO
design under control
IEEE SOCC 2009, Belfast, 10th Sept
Copyright © 2007-2009 Silicon & Software Systems Limited

2. Don’t Build a Standing Army
• ‘Provisioning an organisation for the peak load it must sustain,
at the peak of a SoC development (perhaps a few months),
leads to under-utilisation at other times.’
• The Standing Army
- Worryingly common!
• This is a high fixed cost
• It potentially remains indefinitely Source: Flickr -Roseinbal
• It is more than just salaries, it is EDA tools, computers …
• When you don’t need it, it is a waste of money
• Money that would be better spent on something else
• But it is worse than that …
Copyright © 2007-2009 Silicon & Software Systems Limited Slide 2

3. You need different skills at different stages
• When you start you need to get a good product
definition
• You then need to design and implement this product
that the market wants
• You then need to sell the product
Product Marketing Development Sales
Copyright © 2007-2009 Silicon & Software Systems Limited Slide 3

4. License in IP
• Avoid the “not invented here” syndrome
“Not Invented Here (NIH) is a term used
to describe persistent social, corporate
or institutional culture that avoids using
or buying already existing products,
research or knowledge because of its
different origins.” - Wikipedia
• License in the Intellectual Property you need
– Less risky
• Experts who focus sole on it designed it
• It is used in many different ICs
– Lower cost
• The supplier can recover his development costs over more than just one customer /
product
Copyright © 2007-2009 Silicon & Software Systems Limited Slide 4

5. License in ‘Off-the-shelf’ IP
• ‘Bespoke’ IP is costly for
a supplier to supply
• Supplier has more business
model flexibility when
supplying ‘off-the-shelf’
- has to recover some of
their R&D cost over each
license sale
-more open to royalty rather than up-front cost
- For a VC funded fabless company up-front IP cost may
not be an efficient use of capital
- IP costs funded from the success of the product is less
costly
Copyright © 2007-2009 Silicon & Software Systems Limited Slide 5

6. Suggestions: Innovate to solve real problems
• In terms of market needs, solving problems that
exist today, rather than one that may exist
tomorrow, bring more certainty to the value
• Innovation should be focused on:
– understanding the market,
– identifying a real problem
– applying the right technical
solution
Source: mostlymath.com
Copyright © 2007-2009 Silicon & Software Systems Limited Slide 6

7. Questions?
Copyright © 2007-2009 Silicon & Software Systems Limited