What is needed to support a list of purchased IPs ?

[mosalem2003]

IP Purchase List

Dear All,

My Company acquired a list of IP from another company; I am newly hired to be responsible for the team that will support and maintain that list of IPs.
The consultant who is from the company which sold the IP is in charge to transfer know-how ; by visiting the location only a week/month.
They delivered us only the user-guide and the RTL things with synthesis Scripts like any customer take.

Now, I wanna ask him for the complete list of items to be handed to us which would previal all the stages from the "Standard document TO the FINAL RTL with testcases " ; I need to know what are the full list of items that I should have access on from this guy.

I need to maintain and support the IP with my team and documents like the userguide is not sufficient at all as we are investing our time in reverse engineering the IP. !
When I asked him about :
Basic Building blocks Logic Diagrams and test benchs ; he said I think it is not available ..
I need to know from all of you what complete list of items should I ASK FOR to be able to completely support and maintain the list of purchased(acquired) IPs ..

Thanks

 

[nand_gates]

Re: IP Purchase List

Along with other stuff you mensioned...
In case of soft IP most important document is the micro architecture doc
which is in sync with the RTL. If you dont have these then only GOD may
help you!
Testbench description docs and how to run the testsuit is also important.
Any way this is very common in our industry. Try to live with this!!!

 

[mosalem2003]

Re: IP Purchase List

So you mean -I should add the following to the list
1- Micro Architecture Documentation which describes the architecture of the coded RTL.
2- Testbench Description Documentation.

I think the first two item would help in getting an overview about the design logic architecture for the basic buliding blocks and how they are integrated together to function.
It is a human-read for the coded Verilog RTL.
The second item will help in descriping what the test is doing and helps in following the flow of data,control and etc..

Now, What about the Synthesis.?
The deliverable from this acquired company to customers are Synopsys DC synthesis Scripts.
In our company we don't have synopsys. So if we get Syn DC or any other tool ; what Kind of Documentation would I ask them for to help me in understanding the Synthesis process.
I think when I deliver for a customer he should have the right to support his synthesis using any tool ; so what documentation or stuff to ask for to help me in Synthesizing the IPs list on any platform and using any tool including the Syn Dc which I have scripts for ...

Please Do participate with your comments as it is very helpful for me ..
LET ME ADD TO MY LIST ... This is a very common Problem in IP industry and I need to know how can designers face it ?

Best Regards,

 

[satya]

Re: IP Purchase List

Hi Mohamed,
The following things are useful to maintain an IP that was developed by somebody else :-

1. MicroArchitecture of block-level.
2. Product Specification.
3. User Guides if any.
4. Testplan doc (which describes how the test env was made including testcases description)
5. synthesis scripts
6. DFT scripts if any
7. scripts related to FPGA Programming (if the IP was prototyped in any FPGA)

Regards,
- Satya

 

[maxsnail]

Re: IP Purchase List

design spec is required, now I am reading a IP about smartcard(7816), no design spec, wo.. difficult.

 

[niuniu]

IP Purchase List

many IP vendor can not provide enough document as you wish, or they will not want to provide all information to you.