Reference Design provides a great amount of flexibility and usability, which shorten the time to complete product and launch it to the market thereby cutting costs and reducing risk in the customer's integration project. These Reference Designs also shortens the design cycle and speeding up the time to market is the major challenge faced by Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

The main purpose of reference design is to support companies in development of next generation products using latest technologies. The reference product is proof of the platform concept and is usually targeted for specific applications.

As the predominant customer for reference designs are OEM's, many reference designs are created by technology component vendors, whether hardware or software, as a means to increase the likelihood that their product will be designed into the OEM's product, giving them a competitive advantage.

Based on the Application area companies can list their reference design in following categories

• Automotive
• Communication
• Computer & Peripherals
• Consumers / Electrical appliances
• Industrial 
• Security & Smartcard