"All these things are converging onto a common IP fabric," says Samueli. "We've really just started today. These are just the first steps."
Samueli admits that most of the future's finished innovative products are likely to come from established players such as Broadcom, which have the necessary resources to design complex chips with tens of millions of logic gates of embedded computation. However, he adds that innovation for discrete parts of such future chips could come from start-ups with a specific focus or vertical specialty.
"Clearly, there's a role for start-ups to develop intellectual property used specifically in one area of a massive chip," says Samueli. "We're always looking for start-ups with an interesting piece of IP."
To that end, Samueli isn't just tire-kicking--he's helping seed the process, with contributions such as his recent $30 million donation to UCLA's School of Engineering, where he's still on "permanent leave" as a professor.
Samueli says he hopes the donation will give the chance for future Broadcoms to get started, but in the meantime the current Broadcom plans to keep innovating and developing new ideas of its own.
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