The IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) and Accellera announced today that in the last six months over 1200 copies of the IEEE 1685™ standard have been downloaded at no charge. The monthly downloads have doubled or tripled each month since the free availability of the standard was introduced in June 2010.

IEEE 1685 is the first standard description for Intellectual Property (IP) blocks for highly automated electronic design environments. It provides the electronics industry with an approach to create and use IP blocks in a standard way so that IP use and re-use is easier and more economic.

IEEE 1685, "Standard for IP-XACT, Standard Structure for Packaging, Integrating and Re-Using IP within Tool-Flows," describes an XML (Extensible Markup Language) Schema for meta-data documenting of IP used in the development, implementation and verification of electronic systems with an API (Application Programming Interface) to provide tool access to the meta-data.

The IEEE 1685 standard offers the capability of having all information available in a machine readable way so that an IP component can be integrated into a design correctly and tested in its environment. The standard can be used for virtually any type of hardware IP (digital, analog and mixed signal) including models.

The Get IEEE 1685™ provides access to the current, active version of the standard in a PDF format at no cost to end-users. IEEE retains the copyright on the standard. For more information or to download the standard, please visit: the dedicated download site.

"Our Get IEEE Standards programs accelerate and facilitate the dissemination of standards and speed up their implementation and adoption," said Judith Gorman, Managing Director of the IEEE Standards Association. "The sustained and growing interest in Get standards like IEEE 1685 standard benefits everyone in the worldwide electronics industry and shows the popularity of this program."

The Get IEEE Standards is an idea that grew within the Corporate Advisory Group (CAG) of the IEEE. The CAG was envisioned and developed for the purpose of providing more visible and financial corporate support for the development of standards. Leaders of Accellera played a key role in the creation of the CAG, working closely with the IEEE. The Get IEEE 1685 program is the first IEEE-SA project of this nature funded by Accellera.

"IP is a valuable part of System on a Chip designs," said Shishpal Rawat, Accellera Chair. "Our collaboration with the IEEE-SA gives the worldwide design community access to our first IP-creation focused standard at no charge."