Re: meaning of IP core
A bit of background info on the therm 'IP core'...
The therm 'IP core' come from 'Intellectual Property core'. This origin to the fact that whan a company design a project, or any idea, this project or idea is the intellectual property of that company. For example, when entering into software or high-tech company, you usually sign an agreement, at hireing, of non-disclosure of intellectual property, and that the stuff created there is the intellectual property of the company, and not the author...
When it come to FPGA however, some company specialize in creating ready-to-use cores. And they are actually selling license to those intellectual properties (which can include source code of the core, restrictions on the use of the core, ...).
So, that's why those are called IP cores. It's a bit like a software company that would, for example, specialize in creating game engines, and sell the engine to other company (like the Half-Life engine...). In the industry, for FPGA, we simply came to adopt this 'IP core' term