The trend in both industrial and consumer electronics continues to be increased performance and functionality in smaller and smaller packages. At the heart of these devices are FPGAs, microcontrollers, microprocessors and/or DSPs which have to become more complex and to operate at higher frequencies. In some applications parallel clusters or "farms" of these devices are used with the same power supply. As a result, current consumption, both individually and in clusters, has steadily increased. Operation at such high currents has made power a major design issue. Simultaneously, technology improvements and design enhancements have allowed the designers of digital processors to reduce the core voltages from the traditional 5 V and 3.3 V to 2.5 V, 1.8 V, and lower.

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