An integrated platform of collaborative project management and silicon intellectual property management for IC design industry David W. Hsiao a , Amy J.C. Trappey a,b, * , Lin Ma c , Pei-Shun Ho d a Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan b Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei 10608, Taiwan c School of Engineering Systems, Faculty of Build Environment and Engineering, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia d Avectec.com, Inc., Hsinchu, Taiwan article info Article history: Received 1 May 2007 Received in revised form 18 May 2008 Keywords: Integrated circuit (IC) design Project management Knowledge management Silicon intellectual property (SIP) Collaborative product design abstract Due to the rapid growth of consumer electronics market, there are urgent needs in effective execution of integrated circuit (IC) collaborative design projects and better utilization of silicon intellectual property (SIP) as design knowledge on a virtual design cyber-space. In order to provide IC industry a well-integrated design environment, this research proposes an integrated information platform which combines the project management (PM) mod- ule, the design knowledge (e.g., SIP) management module and the collaborative working environment for the IC industry. With the project management module, the R&D team leaders can better monitor, coordinate and control design tasks among partners and their schedules to shorten the time to market. Moreover, a knowledge exchange environment, supported by the design knowledge management module, enriches the design chain pro- ductivity and efficiency. Finally, the integration of collaborative working space is the pro- peller to enable collaborative design. With the unique platform that integrates collaborative project and SIP knowledge management, IC companies gain competitive advantages when working as a virtual design team. Ó 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Development of integrated circuits (IC) with multi-million gates is a very complicated task. It usually takes a working team consisting of research staffs from several departments and companies to realize the design concept and to deliver the satisfactory result. IC design processes require huge knowledge and experience as the solid base to generate the design concept and help specify the design details. Most of the knowledge comes from technical documents which describe the re- lated silicon intellectual properties (SIPs), patents and enterprise’s accumulated design experiences [5,24,25,31]. However, the growing rate of knowledge documents is at a very high speed. It is overwhelming to read and analyze these documents merely by the use of human efforts [7,33]. Consequently, applying an automatic mechanism to help engineers read and ana- lyze technical documents is needed [9,29]. Moreover, with enhancement of project management, all team-members should be informed exactly the project status in an attempt to ensure the project schedules and its related tasks being accomplished on time. To meet these requirements, a web-based collaborative project management tool is paramount so that all partic- ipants can review the project intermediately [11,12]. Furthermore, the impact of redesign and engineering changes to project 0020-0255/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ins.2009.01.036 * Corresponding author. Address: Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei 10608, Taiwan. Tel.: +886 2 2771 2171x4541; fax: +886 2 2776 3996. E-mail addresses: d937801@oz.nthu.edu.tw (D.W. Hsiao), trappey@ntut.edu.tw, trappey@ie.nthu.edu.tw (A.J.C. Trappey), l.ma@qut.edu.au (L. Ma), jason@avectec.com.tw (P.-S. Ho). Information Sciences 179 (2009) 2576–2590 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Information Sciences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ins