and

Politecnico di Milano, Italy

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First published 2007

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Acknowledgments

The research activity behind this book has been in progress for more than ten years. It was made possible thanks to the financial support provided by the Italian Ministry of Universities and Research and by industry. In this respect, many thanks go to Mario Paparo of STMicroelectronics (Catania, Italy), Maurizio Pagani of Ericsson Lab (Vimodrone, Italy), and to Mihai Banu of the (formerly) Silicon Circuit Research Department of Bell Laboratories (Murray Hill, NJ), for their strong support.

The authors are indebted to all their past graduate students, Mr Francesco Villa, Dr Alfio Zanchi, Dr Andrea Bonfanti, Dr Luca Roman , Dr Stefano Pellerano, Dr Marco Milani and Dr Luigi Panseri, who shared the excitements of this research and contributed to most of the understanding reported in the following pages. The authors are also extremely grateful to their current Ph.D. students,...