The invention relates to methods and devices to define and control the design of a configurable chip module, instrument or systems, for example, for measurement, control and communication systems or any portion thereof. The module may include one or more chip elements. This can be achieved using, for example, a Graphical User interface (GUI), that transforms selections made by the user to a hardware and/or software configuration for the system in a process transparent to the user. This enables implementation of a plurality of devices and larger subsystems on a chip or chip module without specific semiconductor design knowledge from the user. This transformation process is thus accomplished transparently to the user, who operates the GUI to define the measurement or action which needs to be performed thereby resulting in an automatic combination of hardware and/or software elements available to create a specific configuration.