Identification of interrelationship of key customers’ needs based on structural model for services/capabilities provided by a Semiconductor-Intellectual-Property Mall

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Abstract

The semiconductor industry is shifting towards innovation and acquisition of intellectual property. Semiconductor-Intellectual-Property (SIP) design, a new industry, is also rapidly growing. This challenges both providers and users to develop infrastructure and standard interfaces. Establishing an SIP Mall to provide a full array of SIP business services is a new concept used to promote growth of the SIP industry. Many foundries and governments have been involved in setting up SIP Malls; however, the major services needed for an SIP Mall to attract SIP providers and SIP users must still be clarified. In this paper, the DEMATEL (DEcision MAking Trial and Evaluation Laboratory) method was used to discover and illustrate the key services needed to attract SIP users and SIP providers to an SIP Mall. Research enabled the derivation of the interrelated services and the structural interrelationship between them using the DEMATEL method. Overall, four key services were found to be vital for an SIP Mall to attract customers and to allocate resources efficiently.

Introduction

SIPs are pre-designed functions that can be implemented in one or more semiconductor devices, such as Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), Application Specific Standard Products (ASSPs) or Programmable Logic Devices (PLDs). There are three types of SIPs: Soft SIPs, Hard SIPs and Firm SIPs. These SIP types are based on the degree to which an SIP has been targeted toward a particular fabrication process [1], [2] SIP users choose which type of SIP to purchase by considering whether or not the SIPs meet the specific project requirements, availability, specifications, cost, number of sources, reputation of suppliers, and number of foundries supported [3]. Because of the competitive pressure, improved time-to-market, availability of deep-submicron manufacturing processes [4], trend of outsourcing, and booming of the System-On-a-Chip (SOC) era, the SIP market has grown faster than the semiconductor market overall [5], [6].

The SIP Mall is a transaction platform for gathering SIPs and promoting SIP trade services. However, SIP users and SIP providers face many obstacles in the process of purchasing SIPs. Due to the increased use of commercial SIPs from multiple sources, the process of finding and evaluating SIPs has become time consuming and more complex. The primary concern for an SIP Mall is how to attract SIP providers and SIP users. While SIP Mall founders must determine which services are most conducive to operating an attractive SIP Mall, these issues have rarely been studied.

In this paper, we interviewed chief-executive officers, senior technical personnel, and marketing managers to determine which services (customer’s needs) were required for establishing a successful SIP Mall. Our hypothesis was analyzed by using the DEMATEL method [7]. Unlike a Structural Equation Model (SEM), which has been applied in a number of economic arenas to determine the structure of correlations between variables, the DEMATEL method illustrates the structure and interrelationships of the services and induces a few key services to improve its effectiveness. The DEMATEL method determines 18 influential services and their interrelationships.

The rest of this paper is organized as follows: Section 2 describes the issues of the emerging SIP Mall. In Section 3, we describe the DEMATEL method, explain how to construct the data set of this study, and illustrate the interrelationships of these 18 services. The roles of the 18 services for establishing an attractive SIP Mall, which were analyzed by the DEMATEL method, are discussed in Section 4. Finally, in Section 5, we draw conclusions and offer some discussion related to future work.

Section snippets

Issues of an SIP Mall

The SIP Mall is designed to provide the services needed for SIP providers and SIP users to reduce the time, risk and cost of chip design, and to allow chip design companies to have sufficient and reliable key components for marching into the worldwide chip design market. Although the functions of the SIP Mall are helpful for customers and could accelerate the growth of the SIP market, there are still some obstacles for the development of the SIP Mall.

In the process of chip design, from

DEMATEL method and interrelated factors

The DEMATEL method is based upon graph theory, enabling us to plan and solve problems visually, so that we may divide the factors into a cause and effect group, in order to better understand causal relationships. The purpose of the DEMATEL enquiry in this paper, with experts’ knowledge for contributing to a deeper comprehension of the component services, is the analysis of the structure and interrelationships of the services, and the identification of the key services which will influence the

The normalized Initial Direct-Influence Matrix

After receiving the 17 questionnaire responses, an average matrix A (an 18 × 18 matrix) was calculated and a Normalized Initial Direct-Influence Matrix D, shown in Appendix A, was derived.

The total relation matrix

After deriving the Total Relation Matrix T, based on the Normalized Initial Direct-Influence Matrix D, the values wi and vi of each service can be mapped to a coordinate plane, as shown in Fig. 3. The points above the diagonal, (wi > vi), indicate that the services exerted more influence than they received, and

DEMATEL method to derive interrelated keyfactors

In a totally interdependent system, all of its elements are mutually related, directly or indirectly; thus, any interference with one of the elements affects all the others, making it difficult to find priorities for action. The decision-maker who wants to obtain a specific objective is at a loss if he wants to avoid disturbing the rest of the system while attaining his objective. While the vision of a totally interdependent system leads to passive positions, the vision of a clearer

Conclusions

The SIP Mall is a new concept of the SIP business model. The main concern of an SIP Mall is to attract SIP providers and SIP users. An SIP Mall should provide services that enable SIP providers and users to concentrate on centralized technological development. From 18 interrelated services, the literature has shown that four key services that help attract customers to an SIP Mall are: “Verification”, “SIP Grading”, “Technical Standard Specifying” and “Research Institutes Questing” by using

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