Low Power Techniques for Greener Hardware

The last two decades have seen an exponential growth in the fields of electronic communication and information technology. Not surprisingly, ICT devices have become an integral part of our daily life. As demands for the development of more compact and versatile devices arise, there is mounting pressure on the designers to efficiently use the available resources. The new age ICT has become a matter of serious concern for the environment due to increased power consumption by the devices, the backbone infrastructure and eventual electronic waste disposal. This chapter describes techniques to reduce power consumption in ICT by reducing power at the very basal level of usage, which is the hardware. Careful architecture and design in hardware that keeps the principles of carbon reduction in mind can not only increase the efficiency of the device but also help in making it a green device. The primary focus of the chapter is to reduce the power utilized in the computation part of the device. The chapter also provides a background to other studies being carried out to reduce power consumed by the device as a whole.