IC Design Challenges for Ambient Intelligence
Emile Aarts, R. Roovers · 2003
The vision of Ambient Intelligence opens a world of unprecedented experiences: the interaction of people with electronic devices is changed as contextual awareness, natural interfaces and ubiquitous availability of information are realized. We analyze the consequences of the ambient intelligence vision for electronic devices by mapping the involved technologies on a power-information graph. Based on the differences in power consumption, three types of devices are introduced: the autonomous or microWatt-node, the personal or milliWatt-node and the static or Watt-node. Ambient intelligent functions are realized by a network of these devices with the computing, communication and interface electronics realized in Silicon IC technologies. Three case studies highlight the IC design challenges involved, and show the variety of problems that have to be solved. Ambient Intelligence Ambient intelligence refers to electronic environments that are aware of and responsive to the presence of people [1]. Ambient intelligent systems consist of many distributed consumer devices that interact with users in a natural way. The concept builds on the early ideas of ubiquitous computing introduced by the late Marc Weiser [2] and anticipates a digital world in which electronic devices are the embedded parts of fine-grained distributed networks. An extensive overview of recent developments and challenges in this extremely interesting field of research is given by the research agenda compiled by the