In any marketplace, it’s the buyer’s problem to know in advance of a purchase whether the product is worth the money. In the IP marketplace, the problem’s particularly intense, because until the block is operating within the target environment, it’s close to impossible to know if it’s worth the money.
Today eSilicon is offering what appears to be a reasonable solution to the dilemma. Per the company, “now you can get immediate answers to your power, performance or area questions with pre-loaded data for eSilicon memory compilers and I/Os using the eSilicon IP Marketplace environment.”