Low power digital system design: an overview

The need to reduce the power consumption of the next generation of digital systems is clearly recognized. There are significant research efforts along multiple fronts directed towards this end. This includes designing devices that operate on lower voltages, designing innovative circuits which have reduced power consumption, selecting logic designs which have lower power consumption, and smart power management techniques at the system level which shut off large portions of the system when they are not being used. This paper surveys a range of power optimization techniques used at different levels of design abstraction. Special emphasis has been placed on techniques that have been successfully integrated into industrial practice