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Semiconductor Intellectual Property (IP) Market worth $8.2 billion by 2030

ntellectual Property (IP) is a dangerously overloaded term. In the most general sense, it means any knowledge that is owned by someone. An example is a patent. The patent acknowledges the ownership of the knowledge and provides the terms of protection for it. However, in the semiconductor and EDA industries, the term is well understood to mean a design or verification unit that is pre-packed and available for licensing.

Semiconductor IP (SIP) and Design IP (DIP) are generally the same thing and often just referred to as IP, IP blocks or IP cores. It is a piece of the design, such as a processor, that has been pre-verified and can be included in someone else’s design. There is often a license fee attached to its usage and possibly a royalty for every device made that contains that piece of IP. IP has become essential for the creation of large and complex devices as it would be nearly impossible for any single company to develop all of the blocks necessary for these devices.

The market in APAC is expected to grow at the highest rate during 2021–2026. The global market players are experiencing increased demand for semiconductors such as cores and processors from countries such as China, Japan , Taiwan and South Korea. Major players in the chip industry in APAC include Intel (US), Qualcomm (US), Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (US), and Texas Instruments (US). The consumer electronics vertical would continue to dominate the market in APAC. Increasing demand for consumer electronics, especially smartphones, is expected to drive the growth of the semiconductor IP market in APAC. China is expected to hold the largest market share in APAC by 2026.

Major players in the semiconductor IP market include Arm Holdings Ltd (UK), Synopsys Inc(US), Cadence Design Systems, Inc (US) Imagination Technologies Ltd (UK), CEVA Inc (US),Lattice Semiconductor Corporation (US), Rambus Inc(US), eMemory Technology, Inc (Taiwan), Silicon Storage Technology, Inc (US) and VeriSilicon Microelectronics Co., Ltd. (China) among others.