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2.8 Power Supply Issues

The small supply voltage of Ultra-Low-Power CMOS will also have an impact on the power supply techniques. On the one hand, low \ensuremath{V_{\mathit{DD}}} allows to utilize low-voltage energy sources such as batteries and solar cells more efficiently. On the other hand, the low voltage makes it more difficult to deliver a given amount of power to a chip. In addition, the power per chip area will not likely decrease, especially, in high-performance systems which are power-limited [4]. In the following, some of the prospects, problems, and potential solutions are discussed.






G. Schrom