Universal Principles for Ultra Low Power and Energy Efficient Design

Information is represented by the states of physical devices. It costs energy to transform or maintain the states of these physical devices. Thus, energy and information are deeply linked. This deep link allows the articulation of ten information-based principles for ultra low power design that apply to biology or electronics, to analog or digital systems, and to electrical or nonelectrical systems, at small or large scales. In this tutorial brief, we review these key principles along with examples of how they have been applied in practical electronic systems.