Wireless networks are constantly evolving to support higher data rates and wider coverage at a lower cost. This growth is driven by increasing user expectations for multimedia services that are ubiquitous and customized to individual needs. As a rule of thumb, to keep up with user expectations, wireless systems need to become 10 times faster, 10 times cheaper every 10 years! This growth imposes tremendous pressure on the usage of spectrum, and at the same time, it relies on an exponential increase in the signal processing power as predicted by Moore's law. Meanwhile, the integrated circuit technology is being pushed to its limits. It is believed that Moore's law may remain valid for only another 15 to 20 years before the ultimate device limits for CMOS are reached. Even if Moore's law continues to live on, the issue of silicon power consumption remains unsolved and will eventually become the bottleneck in the implementation of modern wireless systems. New innovations and breakthroughs are needed to realize these challenging requirements in a cost effective manner. This talk provides an overview of the challenges and enabling Techniques for future generations of wireless systems. The final conclusion is to emphasize one more time what Marconi once said: It is dangerous to put limits on wireless!

Amir K. Khandani received his M.A.Sc. degree from University of Tehran and Ph.D. degree from McGill University, in 1985 and 1992, respectively. Following that, he worked for one year as a Research Associate at the INRS-Telecommunication, Montreal. In 1993, he joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the University of Waterloo where he is currently working as a professor. Dr. Khandani is currently holding a Nortel Networks/NSERC industrial research chair. He is also acting as an associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Communications in the area of Coding and Communication Theory.