> It's "IP" (intellectual property) because it's something the company designed, and it's a "core" because it's a circuit that performs a computation.

The same can be said for software.

And your point is?

That the term "IP core" is not sufficiently narrow.

Probably not, but this whole discussion is about a technical term whose origin does not reflect its usage or nature. To me, "IP core" reflects the nature of HDL libraries quite well, and is not at all similar to how the term "dynamic programming" was coined.

Ok, fair enough, but the term is still bad :)