The SOC design movement involves integrating functional units onto a single chip that, even just a few years ago, would have been spread across several chips or even a whole system. SOC designs are increasingly important because they can lower product costs while improving both performance and reliability. They also can speed up product design cycles.

The SOC design movement currently faces two intractable problems. First, it's very difficult to get access to the wide range of IP potentially of interest in the various different single chip designs now feasible. Secondly, it's very hard to acquire the separate pieces selected for integration on a given chip in a compatible form that lets them all interconnect and interoperate as required. If similar license models were adopted widely across the semiconductor industry, it would solve both these problems. Designers not only would have free and immediate access to all the IP of possible interest to them, but all IP would be available in a "soft" format that facilities both easy customization and ready integration.