We in the technology community and marketplace have experienced many events in 2001. The downturn of the IT industry’s economic boom became obvious to everybody, and sales figures for PCs and servers declined. The traditional demand for computers has reached a plateau, it seems. The bulk of new equipment purchases now comes from existing computer users and owners. We have seen the failures of many dotcoms in the broadband, mobile, and wireless fields. However, this seems to be a temporary situation, caused by overly optimistic investment and poor planning by the failed companies. We always need some adjustment—including (sadly) the failure of rushed business ventures— when a new technology appears and is accepted by the market and society, changing the technological infrastructure. Today, many people want a fast Internet connection that they can use everywhere. We have evolved past the phase when only technical geeks played with the broadband environment. In this new phase, many ordinary users choose broadband technology, even when they don’t possess much computer and technical knowledge. The need for faster connections is strong, and no end to technological progress is in sight. The current IT industry is not quite amenable to the short-time attention of investors. However, actually, this is the time for the really skilled engineers and developers to sit and develop the next-generation technology, and to do this while avoiding the influence from short-span market fluctuations. In this issue, we present selected articles from the Hot Interconnects 9 conference. IEEE Micro has featured Hot Interconnects as a special theme issue for the last several years, offering valuable content to Micro readers. The Guest Editors’ Introduction to this issue appears on page 8. The issue covers wide-ranging topics, including the network architecture of microprocessors, server interconnects, clustering technology, efficient compaction of routing tables, and IP processing layers for reconfigurable processors. I hope Micro readers find these articles as interesting as I did. Please enjoy.