Not just research as usual

This issue of IEEE Design & Test focuses on one of the five centers within the Focus Center Research Program (FCRP), the Gigascale Systems Research Center, which addresses systems architecture and design aspects of electronics systems in the late- and post-silicon eras. Six articles written by the center researchers provide an overview of the visions and their key research results. This special issue also features a dynamic interview with Intel Chair Craig Barrett, who is generally considered to be the "father" of the FCRP. Finally, there is a general-interest article that reviews several chip-cooling techniques and presents an alternative approach based on a digital-microfluidic platform.