Mobile Processing
Alice Y. Wang, Kazutami Arimoto · 2008
This year's Mobile Processing session proves that Moore's Law is alive and kicking with submissions showing the highest level of integration in the most advanced process technologies and using low-power techniques. Deep sub-micron technologies allow the processor's clock frequencies to soar and new functions to be added. Doubling transistor counts on a die allows integration of both multiple heterogeneous and homogeneous processors onto one System-on-Chip (SoC). Multi-core solutions moving into the mobile space becomes a viable way to demonstrate the next generation communication standards and multimedia applications. In turn, these new functions open up the consumer electronics space for advanced mobile internet and cellular devices. However, because mobiles are battery operated, smaller transistors, new and faster functions, and multi-core architectures conflict with the requirement to lower power consumption for long battery lifetimes. Thus innovative low-power techniques, both circuit and architectural, increasingly are necessary to allow Moore's law to continue. The six papers introduced in this session highlight the most advanced low-power and high-performance circuit techniques introduced for mobile processing.