Abstract
This paper presents a novel approach to reduce power in multimedia devices. Specifically, we focus on JPEG2000 as a case study. This paper indicates that by utilizing the in-built error resiliency of multimedia content, and the disjoint nature of the encoding and decoding processes, ultra low power architectures that are hardware fault tolerant can be conceived. These architectures utilize aggressive voltage scaling to conserve power at the encoder side while incurring extra processing requirements at the decoder to blindly detect and correct for encoder hardware induced errors. Simulations indicate a reduction of up to 35% in encoder power depending on the choice of technology for a 65-nm CMOS process.