ABSTRACT
Platform-Based Design (PBD) [1,2] has emerged as an important design style as the electronics industry faced serious difficulties owing to three major factors:
1. The disaggregation (or “horizontalization”) of the electronics industry has begun about a decade ago and has affected the structure of the industry favoring the move from a vertically oriented business model to a horizontally oriented one. In the past, electronic system companies used to maintain full control of the product development cycle, from product definition to final manufacturing. Today, the identification of a new market opportunity, the definition of the detailed system specifications, the development and assembly of the components, and the manufacturing of the final product are tasks performed more and more frequently by distinct organizations. In fact, the complexity of electronic designs and the number of technologies that must be mastered to bring winning products to market have forced electronic companies to focus on their core competence. In this
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scenario, the integration of the design chain becomes a serious problem at the hand-off points from one company to another.
