Embedded system design is especially demanding in terms of requirements that need to be satisfied, e.g. real-time processing, cost effectiveness, low energy consumption and reliable operation. These requirements have to be properly balanced until a financially viable global solution is found. Novel mobile multimedia and communication applications pose extremely severe requirements on the amount of storage, processing and functionality capabilities of the system. Near future embedded systems will have to combine interactive gaming with advanced 3D and video codecs together with leading edge wireless connectivity standards, like software defined radio front-ends and protocol stacks for cognitive radio. This will increase the platform requirements by at least a factor of 10. Meanwhile, battery capacity is only increasing by about 7% per year and users demand longer times between battery recharges. Optimizing any one of these requirements by compromising on another is a rather straightforward design task. In embedded system design the solution must obey the constraints in all four requirement axes.