Web-based analysis and distributed IP

The web presents an opportunity for realizing a distributed design framework supporting multi-disciplinary, multi-organizational collaborative design and analysis activities. The potential for deploying online, reusable parts libraries for virtual prototyping and design analysis exists. However, several issues must be solved before vendors will be willing to provide online access to their intellectual property (IP). This paper reviews the main problems facing the web-based design and analysis community before the successful application of web-based virtual prototyping can become a reality. To amplify and solidify our arguments, the application domain of web-based hardware/software co-design is used.