This volume introduces innovative power estimation and optimization methodologies to support the design of low power embedded systems based on high-performance VLIW microprocessors. A VLIW processor is a (generally) pipelined processor that can execute, in each clock cycle, a set of explicitly parallel operations.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Numerical Methods and Applications, NMA 2010, held in Borovets, Bulgaria, in August 2010. The 60 revised full papers presented together with 3 invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions for inclusion in this book. The papers are organized in topical sections on Monte Carlo and quasi-Monte Carlo methods, environmental modeling, grid computing and applications, metaheuristics for optimization problems, and modeling and simulation of electrochemical processes.

Fixtures are crucial to new manufacturing techniques and largely dictate the level of flexibility a manufacturing system can achieve. Advanced Fixture Design for FMS provides a systematic basis for the selection and design of fixturing systems. It gives a review of the current state of the art of flexible and reconfigurable fixturing systems. Recent developments in design methodology using CAD are analysed in depth. Fixture design is seen as an inseparable part of process planning. The primary objective of a fixture system is to ensure that the part being manufactured can be made consistently within the tolerance specified in the design. A new method of tolerance analysis is used to check the suitability of location surfaces and the sequence of operations and is explained in detail.

Mixed-Mode Simulation and Analog Multilevel Simulation addresses the problems of simulating entire mixed analog/digital systems in the time-domain. A complete hierarchy of modeling and simulation methods for analog and digital circuits is described. Mixed-Mode Simulation and Analog Multilevel Simulation also provides a chronology of the research in the field of mixed-mode simulation and analog multilevel simulation over the last ten to fifteen years. In addition, it provides enough information to the reader so that a prototype mixed-mode simulator could be developed using the algorithms in this book. Mixed-Mode Simulation and Analog Multilevel Simulation can also be used as documentation for the SPLICE family of mixed-mode programs as they are based on the algorithms and techniques described in this book.

In the summer of 1981 I was asked to consider the possibility of manufacturing a 600,000 transistor microprocessor in 1985. It was clear that the technology would only be capable of manufacturing 100,000-200,000 transistor chips with acceptable yields. The control store ROM occupied approximately half of the chip area, so I considered adding spare rows and columns to increase ROM yield. Laser-programmed polysilicon fuses would be used to switch between good and bad circuits. Since only half the chip area would have redundancy, I was concerned that the increase in yield would not outweigh the increased costs of testing and redundancy programming. The fabrication technology did not yet exist, so I was unable to experimentally verify the benefits of redundancy. When the technology did become available, it would be too late in the development schedule to spend time running test chips. The yield analysis had to be done analytically or by simulation. Analytic yield analysis techniques did not offer sufficient accuracy for dealing with complex structures. The simulation techniques then available were very labor-intensive and seemed more suitable for redundant memories and other very regular structures [Stapper 80J. I wanted a simulator that would allow me to evaluate the yield of arbitrary redundant layouts, hence I termed such a simulator a layout or yield simulator. Since I was unable to convince anyone to build such a simulator for me, I embarked on the research myself.

For someone with a hammer the whole world looks like a nail. Within the last 10-13 years Binar.y Decision Diagmms (BDDs) have become the state-of-the-art data structure in VLSI CAD for representation and ma nipulation of Boolean functions. Today, BDDs are widely used and in the meantime have also been integrated in commercial tools, especially in the area of verijication and synthesis. The interest in BDDs results from the fact that the data structure is generally accepted as providing a good compromise between conciseness of representation and efficiency of manipulation. With increasing number of applications, also in non CAD areas, classical methods to handle BDDs are being improved and new questions and problems evolve and have to be solved. The book should help the reader who is not familiar with BDDs (or DDs in general) to get a quick start. On the other hand it will discuss several new aspects of BDDs, e.g. with respect to minimization and implementation of a package. This will help people working with BDDs (in industry or academia) to keep informed about recent developments in this area."

Edited book reporting recent results in AI research in power plant surveillance and diagnostics. High quality and applicability of the contributions through a thorough peer-reviewing process. Condition Monitoring and Early Fault Detection provide for better efficiency of energy systems, at lower costs.

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Featured Topics: Analysis of important issues relating to specification, development and use of systems for computer-assisted plant surveillance and diagnosis.- Empirical and analytical methods for on-line calibration monitoring and data reconciliation.- Noise analysis methods for early fault detection, condition monitoring, leak detection and loose part monitoring.- Predictive maintenance and condition monitoring techniques.- Empirical and analytical methods for fault detection and recognition.

Johan H. Huijsing This book contains 18 tutorial papers concentrated on 3 topics, each topic being covered by 6 papers. The topics are: Low-Noise, Low-Power, Low-Voltage Mixed-Mode Design with CAD Tools Voltage, Current, and Time References The papers of this book were written by top experts in the field, currently working at leading European and American universities and companies. These papers are the reviewed versions of the papers presented at the Workshop on Advances in Analog Circuit Design. which was held in Villach, Austria, 26-28 April 1995. The chairman of the Workshop was Dr. Franz Dielacher from Siemens, Austria. The program committee existed of Johan H. Huijsing from the Delft University of Technology, Prof.Willy Sansen from the Catholic University of Leuven, and Dr. Rudy 1. van der Plassche from Philips Eindhoven. This book is the fourth of aseries dedicated to the design of analog circuits. The topics which were covered earlier were: Operational Amplifiers Analog to Digital Converters Analog Computer Aided Design Mixed AlD Circuit Design Sensor Interface Circuits Communication Circuits Low-Power, Low-Voltage Integrated Filters Smart Power As the Workshop will be continued year by year, a valuable series of topics will be built up from all the important areas of analog circuit design. I hope that this book will help designers of analog circuits to improve their work and to speed it up.

The recent boom in the mobile telecommunication market has trapped the interest of almost all electronic and communication companies worldwide. New applications arise every day, more and more countries are covered by digital cellular systems and the competition between the several providers has caused prices to drop rapidly. The creation of this essentially new market would not have been possible without the ap pearance of smalI, low-power, high-performant and certainly low-cost mobile termi nals. The evolution in microelectronics has played a dominant role in this by creating digital signal processing (DSP) chips with more and more computing power and com bining the discrete components of the RF front-end on a few ICs. This work is situated in this last area, i. e. the study of the full integration of the RF transceiver on a single die. Furthermore, in order to be compatible with the digital processing technology, a standard CMOS process without tuning, trimming or post-processing steps must be used. This should flatten the road towards the ultimate goal: the single chip mobile phone. The local oscillator (LO) frequency synthesizer poses some major problems for integration and is the subject of this work. The first, and also the largest, part of this text discusses the design of the Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO). The general phase noise theory of LC-oscillators is pre sented, and the concept of effective resistance and capacitance is introduced to char acterize and compare the performance of different LC-tanks."

Many interesting design trends are shown by the six papers on operational amplifiers (Op Amps). Firstly. there is the line of stand-alone Op Amps using a bipolar IC technology which combines high-frequency and high voltage. This line is represented in papers by Bill Gross and Derek Bowers. Bill Gross shows an improved high-frequency compensation technique of a high quality three stage Op Amp. Derek Bowers improves the gain and frequency behaviour of the stages of a two-stage Op Amp. Both papers also present trends in current-mode feedback Op Amps. Low-voltage bipolar Op Amp design is presented by leroen Fonderie. He shows how multipath nested Miller compensation can be applied to turn rail-to-rail input and output stages into high quality low-voltage Op Amps. Two papers on CMOS Op Amps by Michael Steyaert and Klaas Bult show how high speed and high gain VLSI building blocks can be realised. Without departing from a single-stage OT A structure with a folded cascode output, a thorough high frequency design technique and a gain-boosting technique contributed to the high-speed and the high-gain achieved with these Op Amps. . Finally. Rinaldo Castello shows us how to provide output power with CMOS buffer amplifiers. The combination of class A and AB stages in a multipath nested Miller structure provides the required linearity and bandwidth.

Reasoning in Boolean Networks provides a detailed treatment of recent research advances in algorithmic techniques for logic synthesis, test generation and formal verification of digital circuits. The book presents the central idea of approaching design automation problems for logic-level circuits by specific Boolean reasoning techniques. While Boolean reasoning techniques have been a central element of two-level circuit theory for many decades Reasoning in Boolean Networks describes a basic reasoning methodology for multi-level circuits. This leads to a unified view on two-level and multi-level logic synthesis. The presented reasoning techniques are applied to various CAD-problems to demonstrate their usefulness for today's industrially relevant problems. Reasoning in Boolean Networks provides lucid descriptions of basic algorithmic concepts in automatic test pattern generation, logic synthesis and verification and elaborates their intimate relationship to provide further intuition and insight into the subject. Numerous examples are provide for ease in understanding the material. Reasoning in Boolean Networks is intended for researchers in logic synthesis, VLSI testing and formal verification as well as for integrated circuit designers who want to enhance their understanding of basic CAD methodologies.

The contents of this book are an expanded treatment of a set of presentations given at the first IEEE Workshop on Signal Propagation on Interconnects held Trnvemiindc, Germany, May 14- 16, 1997. Traditional VLSI-based cost and complexity measures have principally incolved transistor counts and chip area. Yet with the increase in clock frequency transistor has become an issue of major concern" At present the emergence of systems on silicon feces designers with a new challenge: how to guarantee signal integrity while propagating high signals between embedded cores on a Thus, interconnects are becuming a significant limiter of future system performance. The element~ involved arc mainly transmission lines but also other interconnect devices life vias, and packages" The electrical phenomena that have to investigated, as for example delay and crosstalk, are governed by electromagnetic theory. Consequently, even in digital circuits there large sectians in whieh the can longer considered logical ones and zeros but must be treated as analog waveforms. To complicate matters, the descriptian of subcircuits by ordinary differential eyuations is inadequate in many instsnces. Only the use yartial differential aquations should guarantee sufficiently accurate results. Yet this would unfortunately increase the camplexity af simulatian and besign tremendously" Therefore, new approuuhes need to be developed.

After a brief introduction to low-power VLSI design, the design space of ASIP instruction set architectures (ISAs) is introduced with a special focus on important features for digital signal processing. Based on the degrees of freedom offered by this design space, a consistent ASIP design flow is proposed: this design flow starts with a given application and uses incremental optimization of the ASIP hardware, of ASIP coprocessors and of the ASIP software by using a top-down approach and by applying application-specific modifications on all levels of design hierarchy. A broad range of real-world signal processing applications serves as vehicle to illustrate each design decision and provides a hands-on approach to ASIP design. Finally, two complete case studies demonstrate the feasibility and the efficiency of the proposed methodology and quantitatively evaluate the benefits of ASIPs in an industrial context.

Co-Design is the set of emerging techniques which allows for the simultaneous design of Hardware and Software. In many cases where the application is very demanding in terms of various performances (time, surface, power consumption), trade-offs between dedicated hardware and dedicated software are becoming increasingly difficult to decide upon in the early stages of a design. Verification techniques - such as simulation or proof techniques - that have proven necessary in the hardware design must be dramatically adapted to the simultaneous verification of Software and Hardware. Describing the latest tools available for both Co-Design and Co-Verification of systems, Hardware/Software Co-Design and Co-Verification offers a complete look at this evolving set of procedures for CAD environments. The book considers all trade-offs that have to be made when co-designing a system. Several models are presented for determining the optimum solution to any co-design problem, including partitioning, architecture synthesis and code generation. When deciding on trade-offs, one of the main factors to be considered is the flow of communication, especially to and from the outside world. This involves the modeling of communication protocols. An approach to the synthesis of interface circuits in the context of co-design is presented. Other chapters present a co-design oriented flexible component data-base and retrieval methods; a case study of an ethernet bridge, designed using LOTOS and co-design methodologies and finally a programmable user interface based on monitors. Hardware/Software Co-Design and Co-Verification will help designers and researchers to understand these latest techniques in system design and as such will be of interest to all involved in embedded system design.

A Designer's Guide to VHDL Synthesis is intended for both design engineers who want to use VHDL-based logic synthesis ASICs and for managers who need to gain a practical understanding of the issues involved in using this technology. The emphasis is placed more on practical applications of VHDL and synthesis based on actual experiences, rather than on a more theoretical approach to the language. VHDL and logic synthesis tools provide very powerful capabilities for ASIC design, but are also very complex and represent a radical departure from traditional design methods. This situation has made it difficult to get started in using this technology for both designers and management, since a major learning effort and culture' change is required. A Designer's Guide to VHDL Synthesis has been written to help design engineers and other professionals successfully make the transition to a design methodology based on VHDL and log synthesis instead of the more traditional schematic based approach. While there are a number of texts on the VHDL language and its use in simulation, little has been written from a designer's viewpoint on how to use VHDL and logic synthesis to design real ASIC systems. The material in this book is based on experience gained in successfully using these techniques for ASIC design and relies heavily on realistic examples to demonstrate the principles involved.

Contributions on UML address the application of UML in the specification of embedded HW/SW systems. C-Based System Design embraces the modeling of operating systems, modeling with different models of computation, generation of test patterns, and experiences from case studies with SystemC. Analog and Mixed-Signal Systems covers rules for solving general modeling problems in VHDL-AMS, modeling of multi-nature systems, synthesis, and modeling of Mixed-Signal Systems with SystemC. Languages for formal methods are addressed by contributions on formal specification and refinement of hybrid, embedded and real-time stems.
Together with articles on new languages such as SystemVerilog and Software Engineering in Automotive Systems the contributions selected for this book embrace all aspects of languages and models for specification, design, modeling and verification of systems. Therefore, the book gives an excellent overview of the actual state-of-the-art and the latest research results.

It is well known that embedded systems have to be implemented efficiently. This requires that processors optimized for certain application domains are used in embedded systems. Such an optimization requires a careful exploration of the design space, including a detailed study of cost/performance tradeoffs. In order to avoid time-consuming assembly language programming during design space exploration, compilers are needed. In order to analyze the effect of various software or hardware configurations on the performance, retargetable compilers are needed that can generate code for numerous different potential hardware configurations. This book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the fast developing area of retargetable compilers for embedded systems. It describes a large set important tools as well as applications of retargetable compilers at different levels in the design flow. Retargetable Compiler Technology for Embedded Systems is mostly self-contained and requires only fundamental knowledge in software and compiler design. It is intended to be a key reference for researchers and designers working on software, compilers, and processor optimization for embedded systems.

The main intention of this book is to give an impression of the state-of-the-art in system-level memory management (data transfer and storage) related issues for complex data-dominated real-time signal and data processing applications. The material is based on research at IMEC in this area in the period 1989- 1997. In order to deal with the stringent timing requirements and the data dominated characteristics of this domain, we have adopted a target architecture style and a systematic methodology to make the exploration and optimization of such systems feasible. Our approach is also very heavily application driven which is illustrated by several realistic demonstrators, partly used as red-thread examples in the book. Moreover, the book addresses only the steps above the traditional high-level synthesis (scheduling and allocation) or compilation (traditional or ILP oriented) tasks. The latter are mainly focussed on scalar or scalar stream operations and data where the internal structure of the complex data types is not exploited, in contrast to the approaches discussed here. The proposed methodologies are largely independent of the level of programmability in the data-path and controller so they are valuable for the realisation of both hardware and software systems. Our target domain consists of signal and data processing systems which deal with large amounts of data."

One of the grand challenges in the nano-scopic computing era is guarantees of robustness. Robust computing system design is confronted with quantum physical, probabilistic, and even biological phenomena, and guaranteeing high reliability is much more difficult than ever before. Scaling devices down to the level of single electron operation will bring forth new challenges due to probabilistic effects and uncertainty in guaranteeing 'zero-one' based computing. Minuscule devices imply billions of devices on a single chip, which may help mitigate the challenge of uncertainty by replication and redundancy. However, such device densities will create a design and validation nightmare with the shear scale.
The questions that confront computer engineers regarding the current status of nanocomputing material and the reliability of systems built from such miniscule devices, are difficult to articulate and answer. We have found a lack of resources in the confines of a single volume that at least partially attempts to answer these questions.
We believe that this volume contains a large amount of research material as well as new ideas that will be very useful for some one starting research in the arena of nanocomputing, not at the device level, but the problems one would face at system level design and validation when nanoscopic physicality will be present at the device level.

The area of analog integrated circuits is facing some serious challenges due to the ongoing trends towards low supply voltages, low power consumption and high-frequency operation. The situation is becoming even more complicated by the fact that many transfer functions have to be tunable or controllable. A promising approach to facing these challenges is given by the class of dynamic translinear circuits, which are, as a consequence, receiving increasing interest. Several different names are used in literature: log-domain, exponential state-space, current-mode companding, instantaneous companding, tanh-domain, sinh-domain, polynomial state-space, square-root domain and translinear filters. In fact, all these groups are (overlapping) subclasses of the overall class of dynamic translinear circuits. Research Perspectives on Dynamic Translinear and Log-Domain Circuits is a compilation of research findings in this growing field. It comprises ten contributions, coming from recognized dynamic-translinear' researchers in Europe and North America. Research Perspectives on Dynamic Translinear and Log-Domain Circuits is an edited volume of original research.

Rapid Prototyping of Application Specific Signal Processors presents leading-edge research that focuses on design methodology, infrastructure support and scalable architectures developed by the 150 million dollar DARPA United States Department of Defense RASSP Program. The contributions to this edited work include an introductory overview chapter that explains the origin, concepts and status of this effort. The RASSP Program is a multi-year DARPA/Tri-Service initiative intended to dramatically improve the process by which complex digital systems, particularly embedded signal processors, are designed, manufactured, upgraded and supported. This program was originally driven by military applications for signal processing. The requirements of military applications for real-time signal processing are typically more demanding than those of commercial applications, but the time gap between technology employed in advanced military prototypes and commercial products is narrowing rapidly. The research on methodologies, infrastructure and architectures presented in this book is applicable to commercial signal processing systems that are in design now, or will be developed before the end of the decade. Rapid Prototyping of Application Specific Signal Processors is a valuable reference for developers of embedded digital systems, particularly systems engineers for signal processing systems (such as digital TV, biomedical image processing systems and telecommunications) and for military contractors who are developing signal processing systems. This book will also be of interest to managers who are charged with responsibility for creating and maintaining environments and infrastructures for developing large embedded digital systems. The chief value for managers will be the defining of methods and processes that reduce development time and cost.

Memory Design Techniques for Low Energy Embedded Systems centers one of the most outstanding problems in chip design for embedded application. It guides the reader through different memory organizations and technologies and it reviews the most successful strategies for optimizing them in the power and performance plane.

There are three outstanding points of this book. First: for the first time, a collective point of view on the role of artificial intelligence paradigm in logic design is introduced. Second, the book reveals new horizons of logic design tools on the technologies of the near future. Finally, the contributors of the book are twenty recognizable leaders in the field from the seven research centres. The chapters of the book have been carefully reviewed by equally qualified experts. All contributors are experienced in practical electronic design and in teaching engineering courses. Thus, the book's style is accessible to graduate students, practical engineers and researchers.

Embedded systems encompass a variety of hardware and software components which perform specific functions in host systems, for example, satellites, washing machines, hand-held telephones and automobiles. Embedded systems have become increasingly digital with a non-digital periphery (analog power) and therefore, both hardware and software codesign are relevant. The vast majority of computers manufactured are used in such systems. They are called embedded' to distinguish them from standard mainframes, workstations, and PCs. Athough the design of embedded systems has been used in industrial practice for decades, the systematic design of such systems has only recently gained increased attention. Advances in microelectronics have made possible applications that would have been impossible without an embedded system design. Embedded System Applications describes the latest techniques for embedded system design in a variety of applications. This also includes some of the latest software tools for embedded system design. Applications of embedded system design in avionics, satellites, radio astronomy, space and control systems are illustrated in separate chapters. Finally, the book contains chapters related to industrial best-practice in embedded system design. Embedded System Applications will be of interest to researchers and designers working in the design of embedded systems for industrial applications.

Design reuse is not just a topic of research but a real industrial necessity in the microelectronic domain and thus driving the competitiveness of relevant areas like for example telecommunication or automotive. Most companies have already dedicated a department or a central unit that transfer design reuse into reality. All main EDA conferences include a track to the topic, and even specific conferences have been established in this area, both in the USA and in Europe. Virtual Components Design and Reuse presents a selection of articles giving a mature and consolidated perspective to design reuse from different points of view. The authors stem from all relevant areas: research and academia, IP providers, EDA vendors and industry. Some classical topics in design reuse, like specification and generation of components, IP retrieval and cataloguing or interface customisation, are revisited and discussed in depth. Moreover, new hot topics are presented, among them IP quality, platform-based reuse, software IP, IP security, business models for design reuse, and major initiatives like the MEDEA EDA Roadmap.