Mannerisms

Philippe Geyres, until last December one of the top two or three execs at STMicroelectronics, said at the recent IEF2007 conference: "Are we going to see foundries going into design? Will they become the IDMs of 2015?"

Sympathising with Geyres, Wally Rhines, CEO of Mentor Graphics, said: "There are a number of IDMs who are concerned that the foundries may become their competitors who will develop design blocks. Where will all the IDMs' differentiation come from if the blocks are standard and you can get them from the foundries? The differentiation will have to come in the software and not from design."

Are the foundries going to take over the IP industry? Are they encroaching on the design community? Will they pick favourites when the decision comes how much information to divulge about manufacturing data - an increasingly important factor on yields?

"It isn't up to TSMC who we like and who we don't like", responds Chuck \Byers, director of brand management at TSMC, when these fears are put to him, "It's a highly market-driven industry. It's not up to TSMC to be market makers, it's up to the design community to be market makers. We provide the DFM (Design For Manufacture) database, and we provide robust building blocks to the third party community."

"We don't get to pick favourites for a lot of reasons", adds Byers, "if the market chooses one set of library and IP and TSMC chooses another, then TSMC loses those wafers. We have always taken an extremely open and ecumenical approach to libraries. It's up to the designer what he wants to put in in terms of macrocells."

"The purpose of the libraries is to build a quick-yielding ramp for the process modules", insists Byers.

He reckons the theory that the foundries will dominate the industry by having a grip on both process and IP, and through them on the designers is rubbish. "That misses the dynamic of a market economy. We can't force the market to do anything", says Byers.

Well that's all very plausible where we are today, but nature abhors a vacuum. If the IDMs are losing control over process, which it seems they are, and are losing control over IP, which it seems they are, and if 3rd party designers are just as good as the IDMs' designers, then who will step into the vacuum caused by the shrinking reach of the IDMs?

The only industry sector with the requisite financial clout is the foundry sector. And that, these days, pretty much means TSMC and UMC who command 80 per cent of the sector.