High definition video requires substantial compression in order to be transmitted or stored economically. Advances in video coding standards from MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 to H.264/AVC have provided ever increasing coding efficiency, at the expense of great computational complexity which can only be delivered through massively parallel processing. This book will present VLSI architectural design and chip implementation for high definition H.264/AVC video encoding, using a state-of-the-art video application, with complete VLSI prototype, via FPGA/ASIC. It will serve as an invaluable reference for anyone interested in VLSI design and high-level (EDA) synthesis for video.

This book presents novel research techniques, algorithms, methodologies and experimental results for high level power estimation and power aware high-level synthesis. Readers will learn to apply such techniques to enable design flows resulting in shorter time to market and successful low power ASIC/FPGA design.

Readers of System Design Optimization for Product Manufacturing will learn about detailed concepts and practical technologies that enable successful product design and manufacture. These concepts and technologies are based on system optimization methodologies that consider a broad range of mechanical, as well as human, factors. System Design Optimization for Product Manufacturing explains the methodologies behind current and future product manufacture. Its detailed explanations of key concepts are relevant not only for product design and manufacture, but also for other business fields. These core concepts and methodologies can be applied to practically any field where informed decision-making is important, and where a range of often conflicting factors must be carefully weighed and considered. System Design Optimization for Product Manufacturing can be used as a fundamental reference book by both engineers and students in the fields of manufacturing, design engineering, and product development.

With the increasing complexity and dynamism in today's product design and manufacturing, more optimal, robust and practical approaches and systems are needed to support product design and manufacturing activities. Multi-objective Evolutionary Optimisation for Product Design and Manufacturing presents a focused collection of quality chapters on state-of-the-art research efforts in multi-objective evolutionary optimisation, as well as their practical applications to integrated product design and manufacturing. Multi-objective Evolutionary Optimisation for Product Design and Manufacturing consists of two major sections. The first presents a broad-based review of the key areas of research in multi-objective evolutionary optimisation. The second gives in-depth treatments of selected methodologies and systems in intelligent design and integrated manufacturing. Recent developments and innovations in multi-objective evolutionary optimisation make Multi-objective Evolutionary Optimisation for Product Design and Manufacturing a useful text for a broad readership, from academic researchers to practicing engineers.

This book is intended to give a general overview of reliability, faults, fault models, nanotechnology, nanodevices, fault-tolerant architectures and reliability evaluation techniques. Additionally, the book provides an in depth state-of-the-art research results and methods for fault tolerance as well as the methodology for designing fault-tolerant systems out of highly unreliable components.

This book deals with energy delivery challenges of the power processing unit of modern computer microprocessors. It describes in detail the consequences of current trends in miniaturization and clock frequency increase, upon the power delivery unit, referred to as voltage regulator. This is an invaluable reference for anybody needing to understand the key performance limitations and opportunities for improvement, from both a circuit and systems perspective, of state-of-the-art power solutions for next generation CPUs.

The field of large-scale dimensional metrology (LSM) deals with objects that have linear dimensions ranging from tens to hundreds of meters. It has recently attracted a great deal of interest in many areas of production, including the automotive, railway, and shipbuilding sectors. Distributed Large-Scale Dimensional Metrology introduces a new paradigm in this field that reverses the classical metrological approach: measuring systems that are portable and can be easily moved around the location of the measured object, which is preferable to moving the object itself. Distributed Large-Scale Dimensional Metrology combines the concepts of distributed systems and large scale metrology at the application level. It focuses on the latest insights and challenges of this new generation of systems from the perspective of the designers and developers. The main topics are: coverage of measuring area, sensors calibration, on-line diagnostics, probe management, and analysis of metrological performance. The general descriptions of each topic are further enriched by specific examples concerning the use of commercially available systems or the development of new prototypes. This will be particularly useful for professional practitioners such as quality engineers, manufacturing and development engineers, and procurement specialists, but Distributed Large-Scale Dimensional Metrology also has a wealth of information for interested academics.

Focal-plane sensor-processor imager devices are sensor arrays and processor arrays embedded in each other on the same silicon chip. This close coupling enables ultra-fast processing even on tiny, low power devices, because the slow and energetically expensive transfer of the large amount of sensory data is eliminated. This technology also makes it possible to produce locally adaptive sensor arrays, which can (similarly to the human retina) adapt to the large dynamics of the illumination in a single scene This book focuses on the implementation and application of state-of-the-art vision chips. It provides an overview of focal plane chip technology, smart imagers and cellular wave computers, along with numerous examples of current vision chips, 3D sensor-processor arrays and their applications. Coverage includes not only the technology behind the devices, but also their near- and mid-term research trends.

Single-threaded software applications have ceased to see signi?cant gains in p- formance on a general-purpose CPU, even with further scaling in very large scale integration (VLSI) technology. This is a signi?cant problem for electronic design automation (EDA) applications, since the design complexity of VLSI integrated circuits (ICs) is continuously growing. In this research monograph, we evaluate custom ICs, ?eld-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and graphics processors as platforms for accelerating EDA algorithms, instead of the general-purpose sing- threaded CPU. We study applications which are used in key time-consuming steps of the VLSI design ?ow. Further, these applications also have different degrees of inherent parallelism in them. We study both control-dominated EDA applications and control plus data parallel EDA applications. We accelerate these applications on these different hardware platforms. We also present an automated approach for accelerating certain uniprocessor applications on a graphics processor. This monograph compares custom ICs, FPGAs, and graphics processing units (GPUs) as potential platforms to accelerate EDA algorithms. It also provides details of the programming model used for interfacing with the GPUs.

Human lives are getting increasingly entangled with technology, especially comp- ing and electronics. At each step we take, especially in a developing world, we are dependent on various gadgets such as cell phones, handheld PDAs, netbooks, me- cal prosthetic devices, and medical measurement devices (e.g., blood pressure m- itors, glucometers). Two important design constraints for such consumer electronics are their form factor and battery life. This translates to the requirements of reduction in the die area and reduced power consumption for the semiconductor chips that go inside these gadgets. Performance is also important, as increasingly sophisticated applications run on these devices, and many of them require fast response time. The form factor of such electronics goods depends not only on the overall area of the chips inside them but also on the packaging, which depends on thermal ch- acteristics. Thermal characteristics in turn depend on peak power signature of the chips. As a result, while the overall energy usage reduction increases battery life, peak power reduction in?uences the form factor. One more important aspect of these electronic equipments is that every 6 months or so, a newer feature needs to be added to keep ahead of the market competition, and hence new designs have to be completed with these new features, better form factor, battery life, and performance every few months. This extreme pressure on the time to market is another force that drives the innovations in design automation of semiconductor chips.

The book presents several highly selected cases in emerging countries where the production-logistics systems have been optimized or improved with the support of mathematical models. The book contains a selection of papers from the 5th International Conference on Production Research (ICPR) Americas 2010 held on July 21-23 in Bogota, Colombia. The main topic of the conference was "Technologies in Logistics and Manufacturing for Small and Medium Enterprises" which is perfectly aligned with the realities of emerging countries. The book presents methodologies and case studies related to a wide variety of production/logistics systems such as diary production, auto parts, steel and iron production, and financial services. It is focused but not limited to Small/Medium Enterprises.

Research on real-time Java technology has been prolific over the past decade, leading to a large number of corresponding hardware and software solutions, and frameworks for distributed and embedded real-time Java systems. This book is aimed primarily at researchers in real-time embedded systems, particularly those who wish to understand the current state of the art in using Java in this domain. Much of the work in real-time distributed, embedded and real-time Java has focused on the Real-time Specification for Java (RTSJ) as the underlying base technology, and consequently many of the Chapters in this book address issues with, or solve problems using, this framework.Describes innovative techniques in: scheduling, memory management, quality of service and communication systems supporting real-time Java applications;Includes coverage of multiprocessor embedded systems and parallel programming;Discusses state-of-the-art resource management for embedded systems, including Java's real-time garbage collection and parallel collectors;Considers hardware support for the execution of Java programs including how programs can interact with functional accelerators;Includes coverage of Safety Critical Java for development of safety critical embedded systems."

All-embracing manufacturing is a system that aims to dissolve the complexity of the manufacturing process and restore the inherent simplicity. It claims that production is very simple and flexible by nature. However, the complexity is a result of the production system approach which makes it rigid and therefore complex. All-embracing manufacturing introduces flexibility to production planning, it eliminates constraints, bottlenecks, and disruptions automatically while it restores the simplicity. No decision is made ahead of time, but only at the time of execution. It introduces technology as dominant part of manufacturing. It is a computer oriented system that imitates human behavior i.e. practically as any of us behave in daily personal life.

This volume is the first book describing the new concept of "Mixed Reality" which is a kind of virtual reality in a broader sense. Published as the proceedings of the first International Symposium on Mixed Reality and written by an interdisciplinary group of experts from all over the world in both industry and academia, this book provides an in-depth look at the current state of mixed reality technology and the scope of its use in entertainment and interactive arts, as well as in engineering and medical applications. Because of the inherent interdisciplinary applications of the mixed reality technology, this book will be useful for computer scientists in computer graphics, computer vision, human computer interaction, and multimedia technologies, and for people involved in cinema/movie, architecture/civil engineering, medical informatics, and interactive entertainment.

Kinetic energy harvesting converts movement or vibrations into electrical energy, enables battery free operation of wireless sensors and autonomous devices and facilitates their placement in locations where replacing a battery is not feasible or attractive. This book provides an introduction to operating principles and design methods of modern kinetic energy harvesting systems and explains the implications of harvested power on autonomous electronic systems design. It describes power conditioning circuits that maximize available energy and electronic systems design strategies that minimize power consumption and enable operation. The principles discussed in the book will be supported by real case studies such as battery-less monitoring sensors at water waste processing plants, embedded battery-less sensors in automotive electronics and sensor-networks built with ultra-low power wireless nodes suitable for battery-less applications.

A systematic computer-aided approach provides a versatile setting for the control engineer to overcome the complications of controller design for highly nonlinear systems. Computer-aided Nonlinear Control System Design provides such an approach based on the use of describing functions. The text deals with a large class of nonlinear systems without restrictions on the system order, the number of inputs and/or outputs or the number, type or arrangement of nonlinear terms. The strongly software-oriented methods detailed facilitate fulfillment of tight performance requirements and help the designer to think in purely nonlinear terms, avoiding the expedient of linearization which can impose substantial and unrealistic model limitations and drive up the cost of the final product.

Design procedures are presented in a step-by-step algorithmic format each step being a functional unit with outputs that drive the other steps. This procedure may be easily implemented on a digital computer with example problems from mechatronic and aerospace design being used to demonstrate the techniques discussed. The author s commercial MATLAB(r)-based environment, available separately from insert URL here, can be used to create simulations showing the results of using the computer-aided control system design ideas characterized in the text.

Academic researchers and graduate students studying nonlinear control systems and control engineers dealing with nonlinear plant, particularly mechatronic or aerospace systems will find Computer-aided Nonlinear Control System Design to be of great practical assistance adding to their toolbox of techniques for dealing with system nonlinearities. A basic knowledge of calculus, nonlinear analysis and software engineering will enable the reader to get the best from this book."

Offers users the first resource guide that combines both the methodology and basics of SystemVerilog Addresses how all these pieces fit together and how they should be used to verify complex chips rapidly and thoroughly. Unique in its broad coverage of SystemVerilog, advanced functional verification, and the combination of the two.

This book provides a broad overview of current research in optical interconnect technologies and architectures. Introductory chapters on high-performance computing and the associated issues in conventional interconnect architectures, and on the fundamental building blocks for integrated optical interconnect, provide the foundations for the bulk of the book which brings together leading experts in the field of optical interconnect architectures for data communication. Particular emphasis is given to the ways in which the photonic components are assembled into architectures to address the needs of data-intensive on-chip communication, and to the performance evaluation of such architectures for specific applications.

As the complexity of modern embedded systems increases, it becomes less practical to design monolithic processing platforms. As a result, reconfigurable computing is being adopted widely for more flexible design. Reconfigurable Computers offer the spatial parallelism and fine-grained customizability of application-specific circuits with the postfabrication programmability of software. To make the most of this unique combination of performance and flexibility, designers need to be aware of both hardware and software issues. FPGA users must think not only about the gates needed to perform a computation but also about the software flow that supports the design process. The goal of this book is to help designers become comfortable with these issues, and thus be able to exploit the vast opportunities possible with reconfigurable logic.

This monograph is motivated by the challenges faced in designing reliable VLSI systems in modern VLSI processes. The reliable operation of integrated circuits (ICs) has become increasingly dif?cult to achieve in the deep submicron (DSM) era. With continuouslydecreasing device feature sizes, combinedwith lower supply voltages and higher operating frequencies, the noise immunity of VLSI circuits is decreasing alarmingly. Thus, VLSI circuits are becoming more vulnerable to noise effects such as crosstalk, power supply variations, and radiation-inducedsoft errors. Among these noise sources, soft errors(or error caused by radiation particle strikes) have become an increasingly troublesome issue for memory arrays as well as c- binational logic circuits. Also, in the DSM era, process variations are increasing at a signi?cant rate, making it more dif?cult to design reliable VLSI circuits. Hence, it is important to ef?ciently design robust VLSI circuits that are resilient to radiation particle strikes and process variations. The work presented in this research mo- graph presents several analysis and design techniques with the goal of realizing VLSI circuits, which are radiation and process variation tolerant.

Internationally refereed papers present the state of the art in computer-aided architectural design research. These papers reflect the theme of the 12th International Conference of CAADFutures, Integrating Technologies for Computer-Aided Design. Collectively, they provide the technological foundation for new ways of thinking about using computers to design. In addition, they address the education of designers themselves.

The Verilog hardware description language (HDL) provides the ability to describe digital and analog systems. This ability spans the range from descriptions that express conceptual and architectural design to detailed descriptions of implementations in gates and transistors. Verilog was developed originally at Gateway Design Automation Corporation during the mid-eighties. Tools to verify designs expressed in Verilog were implemented at the same time and marketed. Now Verilog is an open standard of IEEE with the number 1364. Verilog HDL is now used universally for digital designs in ASIC, FPGA, microprocessor, DSP and many other kinds of design-centers and is supported by most of the EDA companies. The research and education that is conducted in many universities is also using Verilog. This book introduces the Verilog hardware description language and describes it in a comprehensive manner. Verilog HDL was originally developed and specified with the intent of use with a simulator. Semantics of the language had not been fully described until now. In this book, each feature of the language is described using semantic introduction, syntax and examples. Chapter 4 leads to the full semantics of the language by providing definitions of terms, and explaining data structures and algorithms. The book is written with the approach that Verilog is not only a simulation or synthesis language, or a formal method of describing design, but a complete language addressing all of these aspects. This book covers many aspects of Verilog HDL that are essential parts of any design process.

Simulation of computer architectures has made rapid progress recently. The primary application areas are hardware/software performance estimation and optimization as well as functional and timing verification. Recent, innovative technologies such as retargetable simulator generation, dynamic binary translation, or sampling simulation have enabled widespread use of processor and system-on-chip (SoC) simulation tools in the semiconductor and embedded system industries. Simultaneously, processor and SoC simulation is still a very active research area, e.g. what amounts to higher simulation speed, flexibility, and accuracy/speed trade-offs. This book presents and discusses the principle technologies and state-of-the-art in high-level hardware architecture simulation, both at the processor and the system-on-chip level.