Regardless of whether the customer is designing a high-end or portable system, channel integration in the AFE is important. Designing a portable system requires dealing with space savings, to keep the space on the board compact. When designing a high-end system, the designer must think about how to fit all 128 channels into the board, and the integration for this is equally important. AFEs have evolved considerably within the past five years. In 2004, over forty components were needed to design the AFE discretely. Process technology in semiconductors has provided the opportunity to decrease the size, lower the power, and improve the performance. Today’s AFE can get as small as 9X9 mm with sixteen channels of integration, with twice the performance and over 70% less power consumption than five years ago. A higher integration of channels in the AFE device provides significant size reduction, cost savings, and because there are fewer components, a simpler layout.