With the continued trend of increasing levels of integration and a rapid decrease in cost, microelectronics has become indispensable as part of almost all aspects of our daily lives. More and more complex embedded systems fuel a number of applications, including, but not limited to wireless sensor networks for environmental monitoring, cyber physical systems for improved health support, energy optimal mobility, smart factories, security, mobile and pervasive computing devices, or machine to machine interfaces. As many of these applications earn most of their value from mobility and require independence from the mains, they are often powered either from batteries or even from energy harvesting. As such, reducing power consumption and improving energy efficiency has become one of the most important concerns in industry and one of the most active research topics in academia. [read on]
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