Disaggregation of the IC and system design chain toward a specialty model has included a growing reliance on outsourcing. That has created an opportunity for developers of advanced tool suites to field design environments in which the "best of the best"--from anywhere around the globe--can be assembled for round-the-clock development of fully optimized designs.

Such an environment holds obvious appeal for OEMs haunted by the triple demons of narrowing time-to-market windows, tightening cost constraints and ever-rising performance requirements. But they must tread carefully, as new design constraints will now come to the fore. Global design efforts must factor in such variables as design security vulnerabilities; time zone and cultural differences; political and infrastructure vagaries; and the possibility that proj- ect goals, objectives and data will be "lost in translation."

The good news is that as more advanced tools become available for global design and more development teams test the waters, a knowledge base is being built that lets newcomers learn from their predecessors' mistakes and successes.

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