Research over the last decade has brought about the development of high-performance systems such as powerful workstations, sophisticated computer graphics, and multimedia systems such as real-time video and speech recognition. A significant change in the attitude of users is the desire to have access to this computation at any location without the need to be connected to the wired power source. This has resulted in the explosive growth of research and development in the area of wireless computing over the last five years. Technologies for Wireless Computing deals with several key technologies required for wireless computing. The topics covered include reliable wireless protocols, portable terminal design considerations, video coding, RF circuit design issues and tools, display technology, energy-efficient applications, specific and programmable design techniques, energy efficiency metrics, low-voltage process technology and circuit design considerations, and CAD tools for low-power design at the behavior, logic and physical design level. Technologies for Wireless Computing is an edited volume of original research comprising invited contributions by leading researchers. This research work has also been published as a special issue of the Journal of VLSI Signal Processing Systems (Volume 13, Numbers 2 & 3).

This collection of important papers provides a comprehensive overview of low-power system design, from component technologies and circuits to architecture, system design, and CAD techniques. LOW POWER CMOS DESIGN summarizes the key low-power contributions through papers written by experts in this evolving field.

This book is the first in aseries on novellow power design architectures, methods and design practices. It results from of a large European project started in 1997, whose goal is to promote the further development and the faster and wider industrial use of advanced design methods for reducing the power consumption of electronic systems. Low power design became crucial with the wide spread of portable information and cornrnunication terminals, where a small battery has to last for a long period. High performance electronics, in addition, suffers from a permanent increase of the dissipated power per square millimetre of silicon, due to the increasing eIock-rates, which causes cooling and reliability problems or otherwise limits the performance. The European Union's Information Technologies Programme 'Esprit' did there fore launch a 'Pilot action for Low Power Design' , wh ich eventually grew to 19 R&D projects and one coordination project, with an overall budget of 14 million Euro. It is meanwhile known as European Low Power Initiative for Electronic System Design (ESD-LPD) and will be completed by the end of 2001. It involves 30 major Euro pean companies and 20 well-known institutes. The R&D projects aims to develop or demonstrate new design methods for power reduction, while the coordination project takes care that the methods, experiences and results are properly documented and pub licised.

Advanced Low-Power Digital Circuit Techniques presents several novel high performance digital circuit designs that emphasize low-power and low-voltage operation. These circuits represent a wide range of circuits that are used in state-of-the-art VLSI systems and hence serve as good examples for low-power design. Each chapter contains a brief introduction that serves as a quick background and gives the motivation behind the design. Each chapter also ends with a summary that briefly explains the contributions contained therein. This makes the book very readable. The reader can skim through the chapters very quickly to get a feel for the design problems presented in the book and the solutions proposed by the authors. Examples of circuits used in systems where low-power is important from reliability and portability points of view (such as general-purpose and DSP processors) are presented in Chapters 2, 3 and 4. Chapters 5 and 7 give examples of circuits used in systems where reliability and more system integration are the main driving forces behind lowering the power consumption. Chapter 6 gives an example of a general purpose high-performance low-power circuit design. Advanced Low-Power Digital Circuit Techniques is a real designer's book. It investigates alternative circuit styles, as well as architectural alternatives, and gives quantitative results for comparison in realistic technologies. Several of the circuits presented have been fabricated so that simulations can be checked. The circuits covered are the most important building blocks for many designs, so the text will be of direct use to designers. MOS designs are covered, as well as BiCMOS, and there are several novel circuits.