Is There no such thing as Analog IP? The Analog IP paradox

My favorite part of IC design is working on the architecture.  At the beginning you have the most freedom to make decisions while enduring an period of study.  Its great to be paid to look at the Journal of Solid State Circuits, text books, design reviews and schematic databases.  Sizing up the task and the different directions it could possibly take.  Balancing risk and time-to-market with a handy IP library and a design team ready to go.  Personally I have had good luck with IP.

I have met analog designers who believe there is no such thing as analog IP.  Most every chip I have ever worked on has circuits re-used from a previous one.  Maybe some of the layouts change, but in the hands of a skilled analog designer the schedule reduction is dramatic.  A full understanding of the block and the history of the circuit block is required.  Of course, we don't want to start with a problematic block or known bad architecture.  If you don't believe in IP you probably have a high opinion of yourself.  Or a big "S" on that t-shirt underneath your button-down shirt.  This paragraph is one of the reasons I created this blog.  Designing everything from scratch each time is hardly street-smart, although may appeal to someone new to the game. It's called Not Invented Here (NIH) syndrome. 

I recall meeting K. Nagaraj at ISSCC a 14 or so years ago.  I used a correlated-double-sampled switched-capacitor integrator he published (around 1996) with Paul Ferguson (lead author).  I said hey Nagaraj thanks for the awesome integrator, made my chip much easier and reduced the risk.  "I never built that circuit" was his response.  Amazing, I told him I read the paper and built it right "off the page".  He said that wasn't normal and that most people cannot build these things.  Does K. Nagaraj believe in IP?  Is it not the IP but who can use it?

I can't over emphasize that its important that you understand the block you "borrowed".  This becomes easier with experience, and the more blocks you have seen.  If you don't have experience with it, you probably shouldn't mess with it.  If an "IP" Tzar were to exist, he/she would have experience with several architectures of ADCs, DACs, PLLs and DC DC converters.  Gray hair is on your head.  You may write a blog about how you make your living making and selling analog circuits.

An example of this I saw recently when a block was being taken from one chip and "performance improved".  The chip lead grabbed the piece of IP but didn't fully understand it.  We were just about to close the micro-architecture spec (MAS) when he did figure out the issue.  As a manager I feel I failed him, however truthfully at this point its easy to change.  The architectural phase did its duty, it kept a mistake from even getting near silicon.  This is all part of the chip-making process.  There will be more posts on this topic in this blog later on.

How much is it worth? Does it have asset value?  Well, the answer to that is "no".   I asked a VP/GM about this at my company, he basically said IP for the sake of IP is worthless.  This was from a guy who sold IP even back "in the day".  IP sitting around has no apparent value.  So unless someone gives it a home in a chip making money, its doing nothing but eating up a forgotten chunk of disk space.  What is strange is that in the right hands, it may save a company risk, time and therefore money.  This doesn't sound worthless to me.  Its the IP Paradox.