Patent ID: 6968346

Claim:
A computer-based design framework for designing an end-product said design framework comprising: a virtual database management system, which receives data from a plurality of distinct sources and creates a single database interface to said sources for accessing a single unified design database; software code associated with said virtual database management system for mapping informational structures utilized by said sources to a common syntax; and additional logic associated with said virtual database management system that provides a set of publishing rules for extracting information on demand and publishing said extracted information in a format recognized by a requestor of said information; wherein said common syntax is an enhanced application of eXtensible Markup Language (XML); and wherein said end-product is a system on a chip (SOC) and said XML is expanded with SOC-specific attribute type definitions to generate a SOC markup language (SOCML) that supports a plurality of functional components that operate according to SOCML design specification, said SOCML providing a specific XML schema to define System-on-a-Chip design data and a standard for storing and transporting SOC specification and design data.