This book is dedicated to Prof. Dr. Heinz Gerhäuser on the occasion of his retirement both from the position of Executive Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS and from the Endowed Chair of Information Technologies with a Focus on Communication Electronics (LIKE) at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg.

Heinz Gerhäuser''s vision and entrepreneurial spirit have made the Fraunhofer IIS one of the most successful and renowned German research institutions. He has been Director of the Fraunhofer IIS since 1993, and under his leadership it has grown to become the largest of Germany''s 60 Fraunhofer Institutes, a position it retains to this day, currently employing over 730 staff. Likely his most important scientific as well as application-related contribution was his pivotal role in the development of the mp3 format, which would later become a worldwide success.

The contributions to this Festschrift were written by both Fraunhofer IIS staff and external project team members in appreciation of Prof. Dr. Gerhäuser''s lifetime academic achievements and his inspiring leadership at the Fraunhofer IIS. The papers reflect the broad spectrum of the institute''s research activities and are grouped into sections on circuits, information systems, visual computing, and audio and multimedia. They provide academic and industrial researchers in fields like signal processing, sensor networks, microelectronics, and integrated circuits with an up-to-date overview of research results that have a huge potential for cutting-edge industrial applications.

This book is dedicated to Prof. Dr. Heinz Gerhäuser on the occasion of his retirement both from the position of Executive Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS and from the Endowed Chair of Information Technologies with a Focus on Communication Electronics (LIKE) at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg.

Heinz Gerhäuser''s vision and entrepreneurial spirit have made the Fraunhofer IIS one of the most successful and renowned German research institutions. He has been Director of the Fraunhofer IIS since 1993, and under his leadership it has grown to become the largest of Germany''s 60 Fraunhofer Institutes, a position it retains to this day, currently employing over 730 staff. Likely his most important scientific as well as application-related contribution was his pivotal role in the development of the mp3 format, which would later become a worldwide success.

The contributions to this Festschrift were written by both Fraunhofer IIS staff and external project team members in appreciation of Prof. Dr. Gerhäuser''s lifetime academic achievements and his inspiring leadership at the Fraunhofer IIS. The papers reflect the broad spectrum of the institute''s research activities and are grouped into sections on circuits, information systems, visual computing, and audio and multimedia. They provide academic and industrial researchers in fields like signal processing, sensor networks, microelectronics, and integrated circuits with an up-to-date overview of research results that have a huge potential for cutting-edge industrial applications.