Defying hard times [semiconductor intellectual property business]

The article discusses the challenges facing the semiconductor intellectual property business from the perspective of ARC International. ARC has been working hard to strengthen its position as a one-stop-shop SIP supplier with a highly distinctive processor technology. It is operating in a crowded and highly competitive market. ARC gains an edge on its rivals by virtue of its Tangent reconfigurable processor and by positioning itself as a supplier of integrated system solutions. Using the ARChitect point-and-click configuration tool, customers can fine-tune the parameters of their processor, for example by selecting the size of the data and instruction caches. There is also the opportunity to make customer-specific additions to the instruction set, an option taken up in around 20% of designs. Following a programme of acquisitions, ARC now complements its processor cores with a range of application-specific SIP products supporting USB, Ethernet and 802.11 wireless LANs.