Abstract
In the knowledge economy, the ability to effectively accumulate knowledge and to fully utilize high value-added intellectual properties (IPs) becomes critical success factor for enterprises in the marketplace. In the semiconductor (i.e., integrated circuit - IC) industry, design a system on chip (SoC) consisting multiple functions requiring very low power consumption is the major trend in the IC design industry. Thus, Silicon Intellectual Property (SIP) plays a vital role in the SoC productization and commercialization. In order to achieve time-to-market in IC production, SIP design and reuse becomes a key factor in SoC development. This research applies mobile agent technology for the enabling of SIP knowledge trade mechanisms on the Internet. Under the principles of real time sharing, asynchronous acquiring and parallel task processing, this research helps SIP buyers and sellers access the SIP data and documents and facilitate their matching and trading activities. Following the proposed system architecture, we implement a prototype consisting of knowledge service and e-trade platform (KSTP), its Internet knowledge acquisition capabilities and its trade matching capabilities using fuzzy logic inferences and mobile agent technology. In the KSTP implementation, we define the related modules of main system and construct the infrastructure of KSTP Web interfaces. In the mobile agent behavioral model for knowledge acquisition, we construct the negotiation mechanism between the SIP providers and inquirers. The prototype considers factors of efficiency, lower cost and precision in SIP knowledge acquisition. In the trade matching implementation, the partner evaluation indices are represented using fuzzy set theory. The matching model can efficiently and consistently suggest suitable partners for trading in different circumstances. The ultimate goal of our research is to provide an integrated platform for SIP exchanges and reuse to speed up the SoC design-to-market in IC industry.