In
electronic design a
semiconductor intellectual property core,
IP core, or
IP block is a reusable unit of logic, cell, or chip layout design that is the
intellectual property of one party. IP cores may be
licensed to another party or can be owned and used by a single party alone. The term is derived from the licensing of the
patent and/or source code
copyright that exist in the design. IP cores can be used as building blocks within
ASIC chip designs or
FPGA logic designs.