An overview about the German cluster project Cool Silicon aiming at increasing the energy efficiency for semiconductors, communications, sensors and software is presented. Examples for achievements are: 1000 times reduced gate leakage in transistors using high-fc (HKMG) materials compared to conventional poly-gate (SiON) devices at the same technology node; 700 V transistors integrated in standard 0.35 μm CMOS; solar cell efficiencies above 19% at < 200 W/m2 irradiation; 0.99 power factor, 87% efficiency and 0.088 distortion factor for dc supplies; 1 ns synchronization resolution via Ethernet; database accelerators allowing 85% energy savings for servers; adaptive software yielding energy reduction of 73% for e-Commerce applications; processors and corresponding data links with 40% and 70% energy savings, respectively, by adaption of clock frequency and supply voltage in less than 20 ns; clock generator chip with tunable frequency from 83-666 MHz and 0.62-1.6 mW dc power; 90 Gb/s on-chip link over 6 mm and efficiency of 174 fJ/mm; dynamic biasing system doubling efficiency in power amplifiers; 60 GHz BiCMOS frontends with dc power to bandwidth ratio of 0.17 mW/MHz; driver assistance systems reducing energy consumption by 10% in cars

A first analysis of a deep blind HI survey covering the southern Zone of Avoidance plus an extension towards the north (196† ≤ ℓ ≤ 52†) obtained with the Multibeam receiver at the 64-m Parkes telescope reveals slightly over a thousand galaxies within the latitude completeness limit of |b| ≤ 5†. The characteristics and the uncovered large-scale structures of this survey are described, in particular the prominence of the Norma Supercluster, the possible cluster around PKS 1343–601 (both in the Great Attractor region), as well as the Local Void and the clustering in the Puppis region. In this blind HI survey HIZOA J0836–43 was discovered, one of the most massive spiral galaxies known to date (MHI = 7.3 × 1010 M⊙, MT = 1.1 × 1012 M⊙; H0 = 75 km/s/Mpc). Although of similar mass to Malin 1-like objects, this galaxy does not share their typical low-surface brightness properties, but seems an exceptionally massive but normal, high surface brightness, star-forming galaxy.