Our world is getting smarter. From washing and kitchen machines over cars to smartphones and TVs - our daily life is covered with a large number of electronic devices. While most of them are still working autonomously today, digitalization and 5G mobile communications just kick off the new era of networked devices and systems.

The core of all smart devices are small computers that take over basic functions like controlling or human-machine-interaction. However, they also get more compute-intensive tasks like audio and video signal processing or artificial intelligence now. In addition, we need to take care of privacy, security, and safety aspects while obeying hard power and energy constraints given for instance by available battery capacities. In many cases, we can only overcome this challenge with application-specific system configurations based on dedicated CPU, memory, communication and accelerator structures. Those embedded systems are often invisible for users, but belong to the most important components of modern technical solutions.

The big challenge for the future is the ability to develop and manufacture powerful systems with very high complexities in even shorter time-to-markets, while those systems shall be secure, safe, and maintainable. In all cases, the specific target application heavily influences the technological aspects and required strong interdisciplinary skills from all involved people.