Fundamentals of Low Power IC Design

The power consumed by electronic devices has been on a downward path for many years as a result of the hard work and creativity of talented engineers.

Despite the obvious gains, the creation of lower power designs continues to be a major concern of modern engineering. There are two facets to this engineering problem. One is simply the desire to consume less power; to extend battery life and to make wall-powered devices cheaper to operate and ecologically friendlier. The other, perhaps less obvious problem, is that all power consumed must also be dissipated. Power dissipation has become more difficult as devices have become more complex yet smaller. Of course, the best way to help the dissipation problem is to consume less power in the first place.

This course looks at the fundamentals of achieving the low power operation needed with nearly all of today's leading-edge chip designs.