In this paper a low--power, low--voltage voice--controlled H.263 video decoding system is presented. Its power consumption makes it suitable for portable systems with limited battery resources. Video decoding of QCIF images at 25 frames per second is achieved at 1 MHz clock frequency and requires about 60$\mu$W@1V. SQCIF and CIF image formats are also supported. The decoder circuit is controlled by the on--chip isolated word speech recognizer. It is used to implement command--oriented and menu--based applications. The resulting system is expandable taking additional external devices under voice control. The chip integrates 650k transistors in a 36$mm^2$ area and has been implemented using a standard CMOS 0.35 $\mu$m, 5-metal technology process. The system works correctly down to 0.9V allowing single--cell button battery operation.

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