This book contains the papers that have been presented at the ninth Very Large Scale Integrated Systems conference VLSI'97 that is organized biannually by IFIP Working Group 10.5. It took place at Hotel Serra Azul, in Gramado Brazil from 26-30 August 1997. Previous conferences have taken place in Edinburgh, Trondheim, Vancouver, Munich, Grenoble and Tokyo. The papers in this book report on all aspects of importance to the design of the current and future integrated systems. The current trend towards the realization of versatile Systems-on-a-Chip require attention of embedded hardware/software systems, dedicated ASIC hardware, sensors and actuators, mixed analog/digital design, video and image processing, low power battery operation and wireless communication. The papers as presented in Jhis book have been organized in two tracks, where one is dealing with VLSI System Design and Applications and the other presents VLSI Design Methods and CAD. The following topics are addressed: VLSI System Design and Applications Track • VLSI for Video and Image Processing. • Microsystem and Mixed-mode design. • Communication And Memory System Design • Cow-voltage & Low-power Analog Circuits. • High Speed Circuit Techniques • Application Specific DSP Architectures. VLSI Design Methods and CAD Track • Specification and Simulation at System Level. • Synthesis and Technology Mapping. • CAD Techniques for Low-Power Design. • Physical Design Issues in Sub-micron Technologies. • Architectural Design and Synthesis. • Testing in Complex Mixed Analog and Digital Systems.