Infineon Formalizes IP Licensing Programs

Munich, Germany-based Infineon Technologies, formerly Siemens Semiconductors, has consolidated its licensing programs covering the company's C166 16-bit microcontroller, Carmel Digital Signal Processing (DSP), and TriCore 32-bit microprocessor technologies.

The Infineon licensing program will grant rights to use the company's intellectual property to IC manufacturers, design services companies, IP resellers/distributors, and fabless IC companies. Beyond the goal of generating royalty revenues from end products incorporating Infineon IP, Infineon views a consolidated, coherent IP licensing effort as critical to the company's success as the semiconductor industry migrates from standard-product-sales business models towards system-on-a-chip end-product enablement business models.

The program will be open to companies that believe they can profit by integrating Infineon intelligent core IP into end products. Licensees could include custom and standard product IC manufacturers, fabless IC companies, design services companies, intellectual property distributors and resellers, and IC end users.

The company will retain responsibility for intelligent core technology development and standards setting, with these efforts influenced by consultations with licensees. Infineon will also continue to engage in joint development with its licensees.

Infineon plans to have synthesizable versions of all of its cores available by the end of 1999. The TriCore microprocessor and Carmel DSP architectures already exist in synthesizable form. The C166 16-bit controller architecture is currently being converted into a soft core under an agreement with Synopsys (Mountain View, CA).