LOW power design is playing an important role in today ultra-large
scale integration (ULSI) design, particularly as we continue to double
the number of transistors on a die every two years and increase the
frequency of operation at fairly the same rate. Certainly, an important
aspect of low power faces with mobile communications and it has a huge
impact on our lives, as we are at the start-line of the proliferation of
mobile PDA’s (Personal Digital Assistants), Wireless LAN and portable
multi-media computing. All of these devices are shaping the way we will
be interacting with our family, peers and workplace, thus requiring also
a new and innovative low power design paradigm.
Furthermore, low power design techniques are becoming paramount in
high performance desktop, base-station and server applications, such as
high-speed microprocessors, where excess in power dissipation can lead
to a number of cooling, reliability and signal integrity concerns severely
burdening the total industrial cost. Hence, low power design can be
easily anticipated to further come into prominence as we move to next
generation System-on-Chip and Network-on-Chip designs.
This book is entirely devoted to disseminate the results of a long term
research program between Politecnico di Milano (Italy) and STMicroelectronics,
in the field of architectural exploration and optimization
techniques to designing low power embedded systems.
Some of the recent and most promising advances in techniques and
methodologies for power-conscious design are presented here, spanning
different levels of design abstraction, from SW transformations and algorithms
to high performance VLIW processor’s micro-architecture, power
macro-modeling and optimization.
I’m glad to see that the outstanding work carried out by Dr. Zaccaria
during his PhD fits tightly with STMicroelectronics’ continuous committment
on research and innovation.